"We Need to Learn from What we Have Learned!": The Possible Impact of Covid-19 on the Education and Training of Chaplains

The responses of chaplains providing care in health services during the Covid-19 pandemic showed that they both learned new skills and taught these to others while working in environments made unfamiliar by personal protective equipment and social distancing. This paper discusses the responses of the participants as they relate to education and training as well as suggesting new content and styles of education to meet the needs of chaplains in future similar events

Statistical Fit is like Beauty: a Rasch and Factor Analysis of the Scottish PROM

Chaplains help people face some of the most complex, intractable and traumatic issues in their lives. Spiritual care works. Unfortunately, spiritual needs are rarely met in health and social care because a) spiritual distress is not recognised as such, and b) chaplain interventions are undervalued and misunderstood. The Scottish Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) © was created to help provide evidence for the impact of chaplain interventions. The aim of this study was to establish whether the PROM could also be used to identify patients in need of chaplain interventions. To test this psychometrically, Rasch and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted on an international dataset of post intervention PROMS from UK, Europe and Australia completed between 2018–2020 (n = 1117). The data fit the Rasch model, and the PROM demonstrated uni-dimensionality, construct validity and reliability, meaning PROM scores represent a coherent concept. Higher scores represented lower levels of spiritual distress, and the mean score was 12 out of 20. PROM score of 9 was one standard deviation below the norm, a metric routinely used to identify ‘clinically important difference’ in psychometric scales. A Scottish PROM© score of 9 and under could therefore identify people for whom chaplaincy may be beneficial. The clinical implications of this are considerable

Abnormal blood vessel development and lethality in embryos lacking a single VEGF allele

The endothelial cell-specific vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its cellular receptors Flt-1 and Flk-1 have been implicated in the formation of the embryonic vasculature. This is suggested by their colocalized expression during embryogenesis and the impaired vessel formation in Flk-1 and Flt-1 deficient embryos. However, because Flt-1 also binds placental growth factor, a VEGF homologue, the precise role of VEGF was unknown. Here we report that formation of blood vessels was abnormal, but not abolished, in heterozygous VEGF-deficient (VEGF+/-) embryos, generated by aggregation of embryonic stem (ES) cells with tetraploid embryos (T-ES) and even more impaired in homozygous VEGF-deficient (VEGF-/-) T-ES embryos, resulting in death at mid-gestation. Similar phenotypes were observed in F1-VEGF+/- embryos, generated by germline transmission. We believe that this heterozygous lethal phenotype, which differs from the homozygous lethality in VEGF-receptor-deficient embryos, is unprecedented for a targeted autosomal gene inactivation, and is indicative of a tight dose-dependent regulation of embryonic vessel development by VEGF.status: publishe

Ein Virus testet den Wohlfahrtsstaat

This essay discusses some of the consequences of the widely observed resurgence of a strong interventionist state during the corona crisis. Its focus is on how health and welfare arrangements impact the elderly, the group primarily affected by COVID-19. Four related perspectives – viewing the crisis as a “natural experiment,” the relationship between experts and politics, biopolitical arguments, and age discrimination – are used to unpack the major inequalities, tensions and deficits in the social and sanitary policies of Western Europe and the US