Investigation of Non-Academic Characteristics used for Selection Entry of Pre-Service Teachers into Higher Education Courses

: Education reform is prioritised in most countries. In 2014, the Australian federal government established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group with a mandate to improve initial teacher education (ITE) to better prepare new teachers for the classroom. One recommendation involved higher education providers selecting ITE candidates who possessed the required academic skills and non-academic characteristics to become successful teachers. This study investigates the prevalence and impact of non-academic characteristics among first-year graduates, using insights from principals in Western Australian public schools. According to the available literature, the link between non-academic characteristics in the ITE selection process and student outcomes and teacher employment is not clearly established. Principals confirmed first year graduates possessing the required non-academic characteristics impacted on student learning and were more employable

Academic performance of third-year medical students learning in rural settings

Investigate the academic performance of medical students in rural and remote discipline rotations by rurality of placement.A retrospective cohort study.Rural and remote clinical placement locations in Queensland, Australia.University of Queensland third-year medical students.In this study, student results for a range of assessments are the main outcome measures with rural area of student placement locations as categorised by the Australian Standard Geographical Classification - Remoteness Areas system the independent variable of interest.There was a significant effect of Australian Standard Geographical Classification - Remoteness Areas of placement on the health project, clinical case presentation, clinical participation assessment and overall grade, after controlling for the potential confounding impact of sex, age, students who attended the rural clinical school, cohort year, rotation during the year and type of health service where students were placed. No significant effect of rural placement level was identified for the written examination, poster or journal of achievement assessments.Medical students' academic achievement is associated with many factors, but this study shows that being placed in remote areas is one factor that either does not impede or can positively influence the learning and academic performance of medical students

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Investigation of early career teacher attrition and the impact of induction programs in Western Australia

This paper contributes to the limited knowledge about Australian early career teacher (ECT) attrition. The population studied included ECTs employed by the Department of Education Western Australia from 2004–2018. This quantitative study focused on ECT attrition rate and profiling ECTs who were likely to leave teaching, and used mixed-methods to investigate ECTs university preparation, intent to stay, resignation reasons and the combined supports received while employed. Study findings reinforced the need for a standardised definition and method of measuring attrition to enable comparisons, and provided information to optimise conditions in retaining ECTs. Ultimately, this will inform planning for teacher workforce supply and provide justification to continue the scale and scope of support for ECTs to address ECT attrition

Investigation of non-academic characteristics used for selection entry of pre-service teachers into higher education courses

Education reform is prioritised in most countries. In 2014, the Australian federal government established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group with a mandate to improve initial teacher education (ITE) to better prepare new teachers for the classroom. One recommendation involved higher education providers selecting ITE candidates who possessed the required academic skills and non-academic characteristics to become successful teachers. This study investigates the prevalence and impact of non-academic characteristics among first-year graduates, using insights from principals in Western Australian public schools. According to the available literature, the link between non-academic characteristics in the ITE selection process and student outcomes and teacher employment is not clearly established. Principals confirmed first year graduates possessing the required non-academic characteristics impacted on student learning and were more employable

Using evaluation to improve medical student rural experience

Objective The aim of this evaluation was to see whether interventions implemented to improve the Rural Medicine Rotation made this a more effective rural medical education experience. Multiple interventions targeting the student experience, lecturers and preceptors were implemented. Methods A quasi-experimental design using pre- and post-measures was used. The participants were all University of Queensland, School of Medicine, Rural Medicine Rotation students who completed the 2009 and 2010 rural medicine rotation evaluations. There were 769 students, with an 84% response rate in 2009 and an 80% response rate in 2010. In addition, all the 25 program preceptors who were visited in 2009 and the 34 who were visited in 2010 participated in the study. Results The implementation of interventions resulted in significant improvement in three outcome measures, namely teaching effectiveness, provision of an environment supportive of learning in a rural/remote setting and opportunities for professional growth. Two of the three other outcome measures - ensuring a safe clinical placement and opportunities for procedural skills experience and development - were very positively evaluated in both 2009 and 2010. Conclusions The interventions contributed to a more effective rural medical education experience, providing students with the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge relevant for rural medicine and to gain an understanding of the context in which rural medicine is practiced. What is known about the topic? Many Australian medical schools offer students rural-based educational opportunities based on the premise that placing medical students in a rural setting may ultimately lead to them choosing careers in rural medicine. However, there is a paucity of evidence on the factors that are considered necessary for medical students to gain a positive rural experience of short conscripted rural placements. What does the paper add? This paper identifies successful interventions to the rotation and placements that provide a positive experience of the rural clinical placement for students. These interventions occurred within an ongoing evaluation program embedded in the rotation. What are the implications for practitioners? Through ongoing evaluation, interventions can be selected and implemented that succeed in contributing to students having a positive rural clinical placement experience. This paper demonstrates how an embedded continuous improvement program serves to provide direction for ongoing modifications

Regular exercise attenuates the metabolic drive to regain weight after long-term weight loss

Weight loss is accompanied by several metabolic adaptations that work together to promote rapid, efficient regain. We employed a rodent model of regain to examine the effects of a regular bout of treadmill exercise on these adaptations. Obesity was induced in obesity-prone rats with 16 wk of high-fat feeding and limited physical activity. Obese rats were then weight reduced (∼14% of body wt) with a calorie-restricted, low-fat diet and maintained at that reduced weight for 8 wk by providing limited provisions of the diet with (EX) or without (SED) a daily bout of treadmill exercise (15 m/min, 30 min/day, 6 days/wk). Weight regain, energy balance, fuel utilization, adipocyte cellularity, and humoral signals of adiposity were monitored during eight subsequent weeks of ad libitum feeding while the rats maintained their respective regimens of physical activity. Regular exercise decreased the rate of regain early in relapse and lowered the defended body weight. During weight maintenance, regular exercise reduced the biological drive to eat so that it came closer to matching the suppressed level of energy expenditure. The diurnal extremes in fuel preference observed in weight-reduced rats were blunted, since exercise promoted the oxidation of fat during periods of feeding (dark cycle) and promoted the oxidation of carbohydrate (CHO) later in the day during periods of deprivation (light cycle) . At the end of relapse, exercise reestablished the homeostatic steady state between intake and expenditure to defend a lower body weight. Compared with SED rats, relapsed EX rats exhibited a reduced turnover of energy, a lower 24-h oxidation of CHO, fewer adipocytes in abdominal fat pads, and peripheral signals that overestimated their adiposity. These observations indicate that regimented exercise altered several metabolic adaptations to weight reduction in a manner that would coordinately attenuate the propensity to regain lost weight

Expression associates with inflammation in early atherosclerosis in humans and can be therapeutically silenced to reduce NF-κB activation and atherogenesis in mice

Background:\ua0Chronic activation of the innate immune system drives inflammation and contributes directly to atherosclerosis. Previously, we showed that macrophages in the atherogenic plaque undergo RIPK3-MLKL-dependent programmed necroptosis in response to sterile ligands such as oxidized LDL and damage-associated patterns (DAMPs) and necroptosis is active in advanced atherosclerotic plaques. Upstream of the RIPK3-MLKL necroptotic machinery lies RIPK1, which acts as a master switch that controls whether the cell undergoes NFκB-dependent inflammation, caspase-dependent apoptosis or necroptosis in response to extracellular stimuli. We therefore set out to investigate the role of RIPK1 in the development of atherosclerosis, which is largely driven by NFκB-dependent inflammation at early stages. We hypothesize that, unlike RIPK3 and MLKL, RIPK1 primarily drives NFκB-dependent inflammation in early atherogenic lesions and knocking down RIPK1 will reduce inflammatory cell activation and protect against the progression of atherosclerosis.Methods:\ua0We examined expression of RIPK1 protein and mRNA in both human and mouse atherosclerotic lesions, and using loss-of-function approaches in vitro in macrophages and endothelial cells to measure inflammatory responses. We administered weekly injections of RIPK1 anti-sense oligonucleotides (ASO) to\ua0Apoe-/-\ua0mice fed a cholesterol-rich (Western) diet for 8 weeks.Results:\ua0We find RIPK1 expression is abundant in early-stage atherosclerotic lesions in both humans and mice. Treatment with RIPK1 ASOs led to a reduction in aortic sinus and\ua0en face\ua0lesion areas (47.2% or 58.8% decrease relative to control,