Nursing the Research Councils

It seems incredible the way the years have flown by since 2006, the year this blog started. So many changes personal, technical, learning ... along the way.

That year I attended a research grants event in Bath, UK. An Ideas Factory organised by one of the research councils. Writing about the fraught, hard, emotionally demanding and yet very rewarding experience it struck me back then how duplication between organisations could creep in.

All those acronyms! There was in a way a lot of support for Hodges' model, with the disciplinary divides in evidence. Whether it's a 'market' view, policy or other perspective it seems innovation, serendipity, creativity and interdisciplinary progress (that might also become transdisciplinary?) might be assisted by some 'slack resource' in the system. Some opportunities, avenues for cross-fertilization of ideas to occur. Sometimes this is done deliberately, such as the Ideas Factory.

Now with austerity ongoing, UK research has been reviewed:

Sir Paul Nurse’s independent review of the UK research councils

I hope that some capacity for mixing things up will remain.

Student's intellectual and ethical development (Gyurko, 2011)

I need to trace out a theoretical basis for Hodges' model. The paper in this post provides a piece of the jig-saw. Hodges' model is a conceptual framework that can act as a starting grid for the ongoing intellectual, ethical and professional development of all students.

In a post to follow I have also found some insights to underpin the objective and subjective within Hodges' model...

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

relativism	duality
multiplicity	commitment

Perry identifies themes or stages of experience, which cluster around nine positions that are classified into four broad categories: duality, multiplicity, relativism, and commitment (Billings et al., 1998). Duality views the world dichotomously as good–bad, right–wrong, or black–white. Those who make meaning from a dichotomous point of view do so with the belief that right answers exist for everything. With regard to learning, in this stage students simply seek the right answer. With multiplicity, students learn to honor “diverse views when the answers are not yet known” (Evans et al., 1998, p. 131). As students advance toward relativism, they begin to recognize that right and wrong and good and bad are not enough to deal with the situations of real life. In this stage, students learn how to look at specific situations in an abstract view and weigh information by problem solving (Evans et al., 1998). Finally, the movement to commitment occurs when “ethical development,” involving choices, decisions, and affirmations, is incorporated in one's lifestyle (Evans et al., 1998, p.133). (p.508)

Gyurko, C. (2011) A synthesis of Vroom's model with other social theories: An application to nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 31(5), 506-510. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2010.08.010

Security of Tools for Community Care and Elsewhere: Take this 'one' with you...?

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

Image sources:

http://picphotos.net
http://www.ebay.co.uk
https://www.signkits.co.uk
https://i.pinimg.com

My source: Following some van, some where...

The Divided Laing by Patrick Marmion

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

Divided Laing: Arcola Theatre

Image: Arcola Theatre
My source: The Sunday Times, Culture, 01.11.15

RDF in the Political Domain: c/o Narayana, S., Varma, G.P.S. & Govardhan, A. (2013)

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

"Consider the scenario where user wishes to find semantic associations between two persons in the domain of ‘Politics’. Then concepts such as ‘Politician’, ‘Political Organization’, ‘Government Organization’ and ‘Legislation’ are considered to be more relevant whereas the concepts such as ‘Financial Organization’ and ‘Terrorist Organization’ are considered to be less relevant. So, user is provided facilities to define his context by selecting his interested regions from the ontology, and based on this context the associations are ranked. As an example consider the RDF graph shown in Figure 2. It shows that, the user has selected three regions belonging to ‘Political Organization’, ‘Politician’, and ‘Legislation’" (p.97).

Figure 2 is copied below.

Reference and Acknowledgement:
Narayana, S., Varma, G.P.S. & Govardhan, A. (2013) An Improved Technique for Ranking Semantic Associations. International Journal of Web & Semantic Technology. 4, 93–106. doi:10.5121/ijwest.2013.4407

Part of RDF graph: DOI : 10.5121/ijwest.2013.4407

Papers - reading: Metalearning, Case-Based Learning, Reflection and Threshold Concepts

Working on the latest paper for module 4...

Jones, P. R. (1995) Hindsight bias in reflective practice: An empirical investigation. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 21(4), 783-788.

Within any web tool-resource based on Hodges' model can I try to ensure that reflection is a more 'contemporaneous' activity?

Ward, Sophie C., & Meyer, Jan H. F. (2010) Metalearning Capacity and Threshold Concept Engagement. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 47(4), 369-378.

Metacognition, metalearning, reflection, reflective practice?

Kinchin, I., & Miller, N. (2012) ‘Structural transformation’ as a threshold concept in university teaching. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49(2), 207-222.

McDonald, K. (2013) Is reflective practice a qualitative methodology? Nurse Education Today, 33, 13–14. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2012.07.011

Reflective practice as a single case study?

Kantar, L.D. & Massouh, A. (2015) Case-based learning: What traditional curricula fail to teach. Nurse Education Today, 35(8), E8-E14.

Three learning practices that were developed by the case study approach: (a) recognizing the particulars of a clinical situation, (b) making sense of patient data and informing decisions, and (c) reflection. Indepth analysis of these practices helped unravel four professional attributes that form the tenets of case-based learning: (1) a salience of clinical knowledge, (2) multiple ways of thinking, (3) professional self-concept, and (4) professional caring.

Several forms of situatedness are also described.

I am wondering about the possible role of 'worked examples', but am also aware through Kantar  & Massouh and others of the labour intensive nature of producing case studies (as worked examples). Is there another way to present them? One that is also student produced?

Situated Noticing
Drawing on students’ experiences in CBL, three categories emerged from the data to describe the sequence of noticing activities: (1) grasp of patient data, (2) holistic grasp of every aspect of the patient, and (3) clinical imagination (e10).

Assumpta, A. (2015) Transdisciplinary technology education: a characterisation and some ideas for implementation in the university, Studies in Higher Education, 40:9, 1715-1728, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2014.899341

No mention of 'holis*' interesting for that?
Figure 1. Conceptual framework to understand complexity theory (Jackson and Ward 2004).

Figure 2. Traits of transdisciplinarity as a process group (Wenger 2000, 233) - includes 'A set of maps'.

(btw - the first paper is not mine.)

Medical (local) history II

It is quite surprising (or maybe not) the things we fail to notice in our everyday lives. Making a slight alteration to my path through the cemetery on the way down to Ashton - my home town in WN4 - I came across the gravestone photographed below.

Of course, 'surgery' in 1822 would have been radically different to that of today. In Jameson's lifetime progress was nonetheless being made on several fronts within medicine:

1796	Edward Jenner develops a method to protect people from smallpox by exposing them to the cowpox virus. In his famous experiment, he rubs pus from a dairymaid's cowpox postule into scratches on the arm of his gardener's 8-year-old son, and then exposes him to smallpox six weeks later (which he does not develop). The process becomes known as vaccination from the Latin vacca for cow. Vaccination with cowpox is made compulsory in Britain in 1853. Jenner is sometimes called the founding father of immunology.
1800	Sir Humphry Davy announces the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, although dentists do not begin using the gas as an anesthetic for almost 45 years.
1816	René Laënnec invents the stethoscope.
1818	British obstetrician James Blundell performs the first successful transfusion of human blood.
1842	American surgeon Crawford W. Long uses ether as a general anesthetic during surgery but does not publish his results. Credit goes to dentist William Morton.

Infoplease: Medical Advances Timeline

Posting the photo and reading this gravestone I am minded about the need for respect and given to wonder about this man and his contemporaries? Is the family still local in Ashton, are they listed in parish records? Are there other records to follow...? What specific deeds gifted him this epitaph?

"Year of his Age": is thought provoking as we carry our Age literally, individually, around us, a bubble of time. Then we try to distil this into the life story of those whose living memory's fail them, but not their families and carers.

It is remarkable to see, in stark relief, the impact of a practitioner's attitude and aptitude. A lesson from the past for all healthcare professionals. This was the case thousands, hundreds of years ago, it is the case today and must be tomorrow.

As you read this slightly weathered stone there is another lesson.
Reading each word, with aged grammar and worn clarity even the past begs us to 'listen actively': the greatest lesson of all.

Bless you Mr Jameson.


Related post:

• Medical history - I