Inclusion and the Ethic of Care: Our Responsibility as Christian Special Educators

This essay explores one teacher\u27s motivation to advocate for more inclusive practices for students with IEPs as a Christian response to applying the ethic of care in public school settings. Additionally, it charges teacher education programs at Christian universities to prepare teacher candidates to apply the ethic of care to their work with students with special needs in response to their faith. Special educators, who listen, show up, and advocate can make a profound difference for their students

Game-Based Teaching Methodology and Empathy in Ethics Education

This article describes the experience of a group of educators participating in a graduate course in ethics. Playing role playing games and the work accompanying that play were the predominate methodology employed in the course. An accompanying research study investigated the lived experiences of the course participants. Themes that emerged from interview data included student engagement, participants’ applications, empathy development, and reactions to professor modeling

Game-Based Teaching Methodology and Empathy (Chapter in How Shall We Then Care? : A Christian Educator’s Guide to Caring for Self, Learners, Colleagues, and Community)

Excerpt: While ethics instruction in initial teacher education and advanced preparation in education fields is fairly common,1 less common is the particular curriculum and teaching methodology described herein. Professional educators make many daily decisions regarding curriculum, instruction, and assessment.2 A number of those decisions reflect a need for and commitment to ethical frameworks that inform professional decisionmaking. Indeed, as Shapiro and Gross point out, “The most difficult decisions to solve are ethical ones that require dealing with paradoxes and complexities.”3 Often, educators find themselves at decision points in which ethical systems seem to clash

<i>Staphylococcus capitis</i>: Review of Its Role in Infections and Outbreaks

In June 2021, a national incident team was formed due to an increased detection of Staphylococcus capitis in samples from hospitalised infants. Staphylococcus capitis has been known to cause outbreaks in neonatal units across the globe, but the extent of the UK spread was unclear. A literature review was undertaken to support case identification, clinical management and environmental infection control. A literature search was undertaken on multiple databases from inception to 24 May 2021, using keywords such as “Staphylococcus capitis”, “NRCS-A”, “S. capitis”, “neonate”, “newborn” and “neonatal intensive care unit” (NICU). After screening, 223 articles of relevance were included. Results show incidences of S. capitis outbreaks have frequently been associated with the outbreak clone (NRCS-A) and environmental sources. The NRCS-A harbours a multidrug resistance profile that includes resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics and aminoglycosides, with several papers noting resistance or heteroresistance to vancomycin. The NRCS-A clone also harbours a novel SCCmec-SCCcad/ars/cop composite island and increased vancomycin resistance. The S. capitis NRCS-A clone has been detected for decades, but the reasons for the potentially increased frequency are unclear, as are the most effective interventions to manage outbreaks associated with this clone. This supports the need for improvements in environmental control and decontamination strategies to prevent transmission

Rethinking the definition of major trauma: The need for trauma intervention outperforms Injury Severity Score and Revised Trauma Score in 38 adult and pediatric trauma centers

BACKGROUND Patients\u27 trauma burdens are a combination of anatomic damage, physiologic derangement, and the resultant depletion of reserve. Typically, Injury Severity Score (ISS) \u3e15 defines major anatomic injury and Revised Trauma Score (RTS) \u3c7.84 defines major physiologic derangement, but there is no standard definition for reserve. The Need For Trauma Intervention (NFTI) identifies severely depleted reserves (NFTI+) with emergent interventions and/or early mortality. We hypothesized NFTI would have stronger associations with outcomes and better model fit than ISS and RTS. METHODS Thirty-eight adult and pediatric U.S. trauma centers submitted data for 88,488 encounters. Mixed models tested ISS greater than 15, RTS less than 7.84, and NFTI\u27s associations with complications, survivors\u27 discharge to continuing care, and survivors\u27 length of stay (LOS). RESULTS The NFTI had stronger associations with complications and LOS than ISS and RTS (odds ratios [99.5% confidence interval]: NFTI = 9.44 [8.46-10.53]; ISS = 5.94 [5.36-6.60], RTS = 4.79 [4.29-5.34]; LOS incidence rate ratios (99.5% confidence interval): NFTI = 3.15 [3.08-3.22], ISS = 2.87 [2.80-2.94], RTS = 2.37 [2.30-2.45]). NFTI was more strongly associated with continuing care discharge but not significantly more than ISS (relative risk [99.5% confidence interval]: NFTI = 2.59 [2.52-2.66], ISS = 2.51 [2.44-2.59], RTS = 2.37 [2.28-2.46]). Cross-validation revealed that in all cases NFTI\u27s model provided a much better fit than ISS greater than 15 or RTS less than 7.84. CONCLUSION In this multicenter study, NFTI had better model fit and stronger associations with the outcomes than ISS and RTS. By determining depletion of reserve via resource consumption, NFTI+ may be a better definition of major trauma than the standard definitions of ISS greater than 15 and RTS less than 7.84. Using NFTI may improve retrospective triage monitoring and statistical risk adjustments. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic, level IV