Beyond the struggles : using social-developmental lenses on the transition to clinical training

Transitions are inevitable. Transition discourse often focuses on the stress associated with entering a new phase of training. Medical educators and researchers have sought to eliminate transition stress with limited success. Recent transition literature has called for new perspectives on the transition ‘problem’ to optimise students’ adaptation to change. This thesis aimed to enhance our understanding of how undergraduate medical students navigate the transition from pre-clinical to clinical training using sociocultural lenses. We first conducted a scoping review (Chapter Two) exploring how researchers have approached the transition from pre-clinical to clinical training and identified the gaps in these approaches. Following the scoping review, we created two overarching questions that address to our research agenda. 1) In what ways does the transition from pre-clinical to clinical training contribute to medical students’ professional and personal identity development? 2) What role do social relationships play in students’ transition from pre-clinical to clinical training? Chapters Three through Five represent individual empirical studies and publications each conducted within the five-year Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) undergraduate medical programme at Western Sydney University in Australia between 2018 and 2020. We conclude that the transition to clinical training is an opportunity for student identity and lifelong skill development (e.g. proactive behaviour); our explicit consideration of identity formation shows this. It occurs when students went from being pre-clinical students to becoming clinical students working and learning around patients. We also conclude that the transition to clinical training is an opportunity for students’ social network development and utilisation. We found that students’ networks are diverse— including family, peers, near-peers, doctors, academic staff, nurses; dynamic—they change significantly over time; and deliberate—students made choices about who was in their social support networks. We lastly conclude that the transition to clinical training is both a threat and an opportunity for learning and development; a developmental networking asset. Students’ lived reality of this tension between opportunity and threat will depend on educators shifting their transition-related perspectives, and creating supportive environments for the transitioning student

Potential Associations of Racial Similarity and Certification Pathways on Teacher Retention

What has caused the struggle to retain teachers? Like other school districts, Miami-Dade County Public School district has a high percentage of minority teachers and continues to seek ways in which to address teacher retention. Such findings are of importance since retaining effective teachers has been linked to positively affecting student achievement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible associations of teacher retention with certification pathways (Traditional Preparation Programs or Alternative Certification Programs) and the racial similarity of the teachers to the students at their schools. Additionally, teacher and school factors such as gender, age, college majors, percentage of low socioeconomic students (Title 1), population size, magnet status, and school grade were included. The findings of some similar studies indicated that alternative certification and traditional preparation programs had comparable results on teacher retention. Furthermore, some research showed that racial congruency reflected a positive relationship with increased teacher retention. Five years of M-DCPS administrative data for the school years between 2015-2020 yielded a sample population of 4,419 teachers. Using IBM’s SPSS software, the data was recoded and run through logistic regression analyses, crosstabulations, and bivariate analyses. The findings of this study suggest that the relationship between teacher retention and Certification Pathways was not significant. Additionally, the relationship between teacher retention and racial similarity was statistically significant but it was a weak one. Population Size had weak statistically significant positive association with teacher retention, whilst School Grade and Age had weak, negative associations with teacher retention. This would suggest that policymakers should consider these results as they formulate onboarding guidelines for the school district

Profiling Ridgway: A Retrospective Analysis of Criminal Profiling through the Green River Investigation

Gary L. Ridgway has been called the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Despite the efforts of the foremost minds in criminal profiling he evaded capture for nearly twenty years. Attempts to profile Ridgway using the methods available failed to identify key behavioral components and misled the investigation. This is a case study and retrospective analysis of criminal profiling with attention to the relationship between crime scene evidence and offender personality, background, and individual characteristics. I hypothesized that modern methods of criminal profiling would have been more effective in identifying personality characteristics of the offender given corrected behavioral models. This study found support of the hypothesis in that the GRK fits known models of behavior based on empirically validated theory; however, further analysis of the series suggests, while modern criminal profiling would have yielded significant investigative leads, the high degree of forensic awareness exhibited by the offender left little forensic evidence. Even with an accurate criminal profile a conviction would not have been possible without the DNA evidence analyzed in 2001 and used to obtain a conviction in 2003

Interview with Dr. Susan Atherley - Alumnus; Adjunct Professor

Clusters, counseling, guidance counselor, adjuncts, principal, law, superintendents, Education Leadership, Preparing New Principals Program, clusters, Dreyfoos School of the Arts, Palm Beach County, Psychology, teaching, BrainSMARThttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/nsudigital_oralhistories/1011/thumbnail.jp

Knowledge, attitudes and practices towards blood donation in Barbados

YesBackground: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100% blood should be from voluntary non-remunerated donors (VNRD) yet the majority of blood donations (75%) in Barbados are family/replacement donations. Increasing VNRD is paramount to achieving a safe, reliable blood supply and understanding the population is a strategy suggested by the WHO to inform donor recruitment and education. Objective: To obtain information to devise strategies for a voluntary donor mobilization campaign in Barbados. Methods: Participants in Barbados (n=429) completed a self-administered questionnaire in 2014. The questionnaire comprised 31 questions including demographics (age, sex, highest educational attainment) and blood donation-related knowledge, attitudes and practices. Analysis of variance, t-test and linear regression were used to analyse data. Results: Fifty-three per cent (n=219) of participants had previously donated blood; only 23.9% of these had donated within the past two years and almost half were family/replacement donors only. Knowledge deficits included blood donation requirements, deferral factors and maximum yearly donations. Most participants (79%) were willing to donate with more information. Participants with higher educational attainment and previous donors had higher total knowledge and attitude scores (p<0.01). Single, female, and younger participants were less likely to donate blood (p<0.05). Conclusion: Barbados can likely increase voluntary blood donation rates by addressing knowledge deficits through education campaigns and increasing awareness of the need for donation

L'organisation de la fonction de gestion environnementale : une étude de cas : le secteur des pâtes et papiers

Pratiques courantes en gestion environnementale -- Forces ayant un impact sur la fonction de gestion environnementale -- Situation de la fonction de gestion environnementale dans le contexte organisationnel -- Méthodologie -- Résultats et analyse : pratiques courantes de gestion environnementale en entreprise -- Résultats et analyse : forces ayant un impact sur la fonction de gestion environnementale -- Résultats et analyse : situation de la fonction de gestion environnementale dans le contexte organisationnel

Laser Absorption Measurements of CO and H2O from Dimethyl Carbonate Combustion Behind Reflected Shock Waves for Safer Li-Ion Battery Applications

Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) is a carbonate ester that can be produced in environment-friendly ways, from sources such as biomass or methanol and CO2. DMC can be used as a diesel fuel additive and is also one of the main components of the flammable electrolyte used in Li-ion batteries. Studying the combustion chemistry of DMC can therefore improve the use of biofuels and help in developing safer Li-ion batteries. The combustion chemistry of DMC has been investigated in a limited number of studies, and a few detailed kinetics models have been proposed in literature. The aim of this study was to complement the scarce data available for DMC combustion in the literature and to improve a detailed kinetic model. Shock tubes were used to measure time histories of CO and H2O using tunable laser absorption techniques for the first time for DMC. Characteristic reaction times were also measured through OH* emission. Shock-tube spectroscopic measurements were performed under dilute conditions, at three equivalence ratios (fuel-lean, stoichiometric, and fuel-rich) between 1260 and 1660 K near 1.3±0.2 atm, and under pyrolysis conditions (98%+) ranging from 1230 to 2500 K near 1.3±0.2 atm. The model comparison and validation were further broadened using new laminar flame speed data collected in CNRS ICARE, France. Flame speeds at 318 K, 363 K and 464 K measured for equivalence ratios of 0.7-1.5 in a spherical vessel around atmospheric pressure were used to further extend the range of conditions investigated. Detailed kinetics models from the literature were compared to the data, and it was found that none can accurately predict the new data over the entire range of conditions investigated. A numerical analysis was performed, and updates to the most accurate model allowed for a significant improvement of the predictions for DMC combustion

La influencia de la música en el aprendizaje y desempeño académico de los estudiantes que participan en la banda de música del Instituto Bern

El Objetivo de este trabajo de investigación ha sido para valorar los aspectos que estimulan a que un estudiante mejore significativamente su desempeño académico y capacidad de aprendizaje, al participar de una agrupación musical como lo es la Banda de Música del Instituto Bern. Se utilizó la siguiente metodología: el tipo de investigación podríamos clasificarla como Investigación Descriptiva, de carácter Ex - post - facto, además es una investigación de campo con un estudio retrospectivo. Las técnicas utilizadas para la investigación fueron: Encuestas, Fichas de Registro, Matrices y sus instrumentos, a saber: matrices, encuestas y lista de cotejo. La población en estudio está representada por los estudiantes matriculados en el Instituto Bern durante los años académicos 2019 y 2020. Finalmente, se concluye que al participar en actividades de la banda de música y dedicar tiempo al instrumento y al aprendizaje del mismo, estimula en los estudiantes competencias actitudinales que repercuten en el rendimiento académico, al grado que en el presente estudio, durante el periodo 2019 - 2020, los resultados fueron satisfactorios tanto en el ámbito actitudinal como académico

Onshore wind energy potential for small island developing states: Findings and recommendations from Barbados

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are often burdened with high electricity prices whilst being bestowed with excellent wind resources. Wind energy is the most proven of the modern renewable energy technologies and, in areas with a good resource, is often the cheapest form of electricity generation. Many small island states have yet to tap into their wind energy potential. Using the Caribbean island of Barbados as a case study, this paper applies basic engineering processes and a spatial planning methodology to determine an island’s maximum potential installed wind capacity. In order to encourage repeated studies for other islands, publicly available global historical hourly weather data is identified and forms part of a technical assessment to estimate the expected annual energy yield. The paper highlights the complexities of wind energy development on small islands when compared with mainland countries and explores the key factors that are to be addressed if SIDS are to make use of their wind resource. Economic analysis of the expected annual energy yield for Barbados predicts a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for wind of 0.13 US$/kWh (±0.01 US$/kWh), which compares favourably with other forms of generation that are an option for the island