Tagged / BU research

Mothering, studying and isolating: A mature student’s experience of studying during the Covid-19 pandemic

student research, Women's Academic Network

Archaeology and mothering, image by Marion Fayolle

A guest post by outgoing BSc Anthropology student Natalie Campbell.

While mature students may make up a minority of the student cohort our numbers are not insignificant. There can be advantages to returning to academia later in life. We may bring significant life and work experiences with us and often the driving forces behind our pursuit of education make for dedicated students. However, while we may not be leaving home for the first time and learning to stand on our own feet, we often have to contend with a weight of responsibility not experienced by your average school leaver. Many mature students have careers, homes and families to support requiring a constant juggling act of time and priorities. To me, this juggling act has never been more apparent than throughout the Covid-19 global pandemic.

I myself am a 3rd year undergraduate student studying BSc Anthropology. I am in my 30’s and have three children. As with many undergraduate degrees my final year has been dominated by my dissertation where I explored mothering in prehistory.

The following excerpt is the evaluative supplement of this dissertation where I reflect on the parallels between my research and my experience as a student and mother during lockdown.

I cannot reflect on this paper without first acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances in which it was written. The global pandemic has deeply impacted each and every one of us and encroached into every aspect of our lives for the past year. I cannot fail to see the irony of attempting to complete a dissertation exploring motherhood experiences while I myself, like millions of mothers around the world, was attempting to navigate a new motherhood experience of juggling childcare and home-schooling while working in lockdown. I am not ashamed to admit that during this time I experienced levels of stress I have never known before. However, the experience has taught me valuable lessons both academically and as a mother in patience, prioritising, flexibility, organisation and time management.

Throughout the entire process from researching to writing I was compelled to make considerations and accommodations for my children and other responsibilities. Whether that meant being mother by day and student by night or reading articles with a 4-year-old perched on my knee while watching more TV than is considered healthy. Reflecting on this has given me a deeper insight into how women’s lives are impacted by motherhood and how much of the mothering experience is about evaluating the situations put before us and putting considerations for our children at the heart of our response.

It is my hope that this insight was carried through into my research project, and that I was able to successfully demonstrate that mothering cannot be reduced to those large events such as childbirth and weaning, that are often the subject of anthropological and archaeological research. Much of mothering is in the small moments of care and consideration that take place every day, which may seem on the surface as invisible not only today but also in the archaeological record. However, by taking a more holistic approach we may be able to scratch the surface and see small traces of mothering in unexpected places such as the diet of a sick child or the positioning of bodies in graves.

While formulating a methodology for my project I struggled to compile a scientific framework that could present these intangible aspects of mothering in context, without losing the personal human experience aspect of mothering. When I was introduced to the concept of a fictive osteobiographical narrative I recognised its potential to represent scientific data in an accessible way. This was important to me as I was keen not to weigh motherhood down with academia to the extent that the human experience is lost. This is a fine line to tread while researching and writing for academic purposes. While some may consider a fictive narrative beyond the scope of academia, I believe it serves as a necessary reminder that behind the data, hypothesise and science are the real people who lived conscious, messy, complicated lives.

At the very beginning of this project, I was advised to choose an area I was truly interested in, otherwise I would be thoroughly tired of the subject by the end. When I first read the case study of the multiple burial at Monkton-Up-Wimborne I was instantly struck with a sense of empathy, not for any specific suffering or hardships they might have faced in life but as one mother to another recognising the extra mental load that comes when factoring children into every aspect of our lives. I remember remarking that I could barely get my children to school without some level of stress yet alone repeatedly escort them to the Mendips and back on foot! In contemporary Britain such an undertaking would require immense planning and consideration and I felt compelled to know if the same were true of Neolithic Britain.

I was to learn through my research that this line of thinking has the potential to create a bias in how we perceive the movement of women in past sedentary societies, where outdated assumptions that women only moved for marriage have prevailed. More research into the motivations behind female mobility is clearly necessary.

Further areas identified throughout this study for future research involve the visually identifiable impact of mothering on skeletal remains, including physical markers of carrying children and whether the higher levels of stress identified in Neolithic women was purely due to pregnancies or if the exertions of mothering had an impact too.

Finally, while this undertaking has been one of the hardest challenges I have faced, I can honestly say it was worth every moment of stress experienced. I entered this degree with the intention of improving my potential in order to support my family, but along the way I have discovered a passion for research which moving forward I would love to foster and develop.

Research impact at BU: stories of older LGBT people change attitudes & the treatment of long-term conditions with electrical stimulation

A series of posts featuring BU’s impact case studies for REF 2021. (These are edited versions of the final submissions – the full impact case studies will be published online in 2022.)

Changing hearts and minds: how the stories of older LGBT people are changing attitudes, education and care

RUFUS STONE (2012)

Research areas: Performative Social Science & Social Care

Staff conducting research: Dr Kip Jones, Professor Lee-Ann Fenge, Dr Rosie Read, Dr Marilyn Cash

Background: In ‘The Gay and Grey’ and ‘The Gay and Pleasant Land’ projects funded by the National Lottery and ESRC respectively, Dr Jones and his team explored the experiences of older LGBT people. They discovered common themes of identity issues, isolation and exclusion and, in particular, a lack of participation from rural residents and limited understanding of participants’ life stories.

Working with an advisory group of older gay people and service providers, BU researchers looked at how older gay men and lesbians in rural areas interacted with their communities, while considering socio-economic and cultural effects and differing attitudes towards sexuality and ageing. Their findings showed: a lifelong impact on gay men who grew up when homosexuality was illegal (up to 1967); the struggle to be accepted in rural communities by many older LGBT people; difficulties negotiating with service providers; fear and loneliness; and the prevalent risk of suicide among older gay men.

Based on these insights, Dr Jones wrote and produced a short film, RUFUS STONE, which tells the story of two young boys’ experience of anger and rejection from a rural 1950s community when they develop feeling for each other. The film sees the two reunited 50 years later, although one character has never revealed his sexuality and ultimately takes his own life. As well as the film, Professor Fenge collaborated with a group of older LGBT people to produce a card deck called ‘Methods to Diversity’ for care agencies and service providers. the cards detail activities and exercises to prompt staff to think about inclusivity and the diversity of the ageing population.

The impact: 

Changing attitudes

RUFUS STONE was screened around the world, attracting attention for both its style and subject matter. It won international accolades, including an award for Best LGBT Film at Rhode Island International Film Festival 2013, and was also featured in the New York Times. As well as prompting discussion around sexuality and marginalisation, the film demonstrably changed attitudes: evidenced by student-teachers in Kazakhstan planning to screen it to pupils to help them “understand… that some existing values are remnants of the older generation”.

The film was also shared online in 2016 and, by December 2020, had been viewed more than 17,800 times in 73 countries.

Educating future generations

Several universities in the UK and abroad use RUFUS STONE in their teaching, including: the University of Manchester, which features it in an undergraduate sociology module; Brighton University, which describes it as ‘inspirational’; Istanbul Yeni Yuzyil University, which has added it to its syllabus at the Faculty of Fine Arts; and the School of Communication and Media Studies in Lisbon.

Transforming frontline care

Hampshire County Council has used the film and the card deck since 2014 in training sessions with emergency services, residential care staff among others, instigating “changes in attitudes and awareness amongst council staff”. It adds that the resources indirectly inspired the county’s first Gay Pride.

The Help and Care UK charity used the film and card deck with its ‘wayfinder’ staff, who signposted older people to information and services. Watching RUFUS STONE challenged their attitudes and perceptions around homosexuality and led to greater awareness. In a 2016 wayfinders briefing document, they included their support for “freedom from discrimination” on the grounds of sexuality.

The Alzheimer’s Society has used the film since 2013 to improve its local and regional teams’ understanding of LGBT issues: “There is no question [it] was a catalyst for change. It was… raw and real so made us think outside the box”.

How our electrical stimulation devices have improved long-term medical conditions

Research areas: Clinical Engineering, Orthopaedics, Design Engineering & Computing

Staff conducting research: Professor Ian Swain, Dr Jon Cobb, Tom Wainwright, Professor Robert Middleton, Professor Paul Taylor, Choukri Mecheraoui

Background: Electrical stimulation is a method of controlling muscles using an external device, following neurological disease such as stroke or musculoskeletal problems. When used to provide a specific function, such as walking or hand grasp, it is known as functional electrical stimulation (FES). The results of Professor Swain’s first ever randomised controlled clinical trial of an ES device to rehabilitate patients with dropped foot after a stroke demonstrated significant advantages over traditional physiotherapy. In addition to providing support and immediate improvement, the device means people receive therapy as they walk, improving walking and quality of life.

Since 2006, Professor Swain has steered a collaboration between BU, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust and Odstock Medical Limited (BU-SFT-OML), after taking the lead in patenting the first Odstock Dropped Foot Stimulator and helping establish OML. The clinical service has since expanded to include the treatment of people with multiple sclerosis (MS), spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease.

Clinical trials supervised by Professors Swain and Taylor showed that 43% of participants who had suffered a stroke improved their walking speed, while people with MS also demonstrated a highly significant improvement. Recent findings showed that such use of ES was the most effective assistive technology treatment, and that it is possible to use surface electrodes to restore useful hand function to people with tetraplegia.

Professor Swain’s move to BU’s Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) to work with Wainwright and Professor Middleton has enabled techniques developed for people with neurological problems to be applied to those with orthopaedic problems. Combining this expertise has led to the development of new stimulators and training courses.

The impact:

Health benefits

The findings from the BU-SFT-OML partnership have helped develop the National Clinical FES Centre in Salisbury, the largest clinical service in the world. As of February 2020, more than 7,700 people have been treated, primarily for walking problems, although the service is expanding to treat upper limb weakness, facial problems such as Bell’s Palsy, and constipation.

The FES devices developed with BU research input have radically improved people’s lives, increasing their functional ability and their participation in society.

Further FES centres, using equipment from BU-SFT-OML, have been established in the West Midlands, London and Sheffield, treating more than 2,600 patients in total.

Policy impacts

In 2016, NICE focused on the PACE device system, developed by BU-SFT-OML, in one of its Medical Innovation Bulletins. Professor Swain also contributed to the development of new NICE guidelines on the use of electrical stimulation in non-neurological long-term conditions.

Since 2014, OML has also trained more than 1,000 staff in total in the UK and abroad on how to implement the devices and treatments developed with BU for people with both lower and upper limb restrictions.

Reminder: Medical Science Virtual STEAMLab APPLY NOW

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

This is a reminder that on Thursday 22nd July 2021 from 2-4pm, RDS will be hosting a virtual STEAMLab event under the strategic investment area (SIA) of Medical Science.

Please apply for a space by 5pm Monday 14th June.

We ask all participants to download and complete the Application Form and return this to Lisa Andrews. 

For more information, please see our previous blog post.

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact RDS Research Facilitators Lisa Andrews or Ehren Milner.

International Confederation of Midwives online conference started today

conferences, international, Publishing, writing

The ICM (International Confederation of Midwives) planned its tri-annual conference for 2020.  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this conference was postponed and this year summer it is being held online.  BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) has a number of great contributions, starting with today’s Symposium ‘Birth by Design 20 years on- a sociological lens on midwifery in the year of the midwife’.

The following sessions, to which CMMPH academic have contributed, are ones to look forward to over the next month:

  • Uniting the voice of midwifery education in the United Kingdom: the evolution and impact of the role of the Lead Midwife for Education (S. Way & N. Clark)
  • Students’ experience of “hands off/hands on” support for breastfeeding in clinical practice (A. Taylor, G. Bennetts & C. Angell)
  • Changing the narrative around childbirth: whose responsibility is it? (V. Hundley, A. Luce, E. van Teijlingen & S. Edlund)
  • The social/medical of maternity care AND you (E. van Teijlingen)
  • Developing an evidence-based toolkit to support practice assessment in midwifery (M. Fisher, H. Bower, S. Chenery Morris, F. Galloway, J. Jackson & S. Way)
  • Are student midwives equipped to support normal birth? (J. Wood & J. Fry)

 

Research impact at BU: the effects of terrorism on tourism & the benefits of digital reading

A series of posts featuring BU’s impact case studies for REF 2021. (These are edited versions of the final submissions – the full impact case studies will be published online in 2022.)

Understanding and helping to minimise the effects of terrorism on tourism destinations

Research areas: Quantitative Finance, Tourism Management, Retail Management, Quantitative Research Design and Analysis

Staff conducting research: Dr Anna Hillingdon, Professor John Fletcher, Professor Stephen Page, Dr John Beavis, Dr Gregory Kapuscinski

Background: Associate Professor Hillingdon is a leading expert in the area of terrorism and its impacts on tourists and tourism destinations. Her work, funded by both the World Bank and the United Nations World Trade Organisation, has offered a number of key insights:

  • Analysis of international tourism arrivals across the USA, Bali, Spain, UK and India showed that terrorist attacks seem to have a larger effect in developing countries than in large European capitals. Where there is a greater dependence on tourism in GDP terms, it is important to restore tourist confidence through efficient and effective post-crisis communication.
  • Demonstrating infrastructure which can quickly restore safety and order can help restore tourist confidence more quickly.
  • International incidents including terrorism do not necessarily have a long-lasting economic impact on tourism.
  • The willingness to travel to a destination after a terrorist attack differs according to personalities.
  • BU researchers conducted an analysis of 250 case study ‘hybrid threats’ (those which combine conventional military aggression with non-conventional means such as cyber-attacks, espionage and terrorism) and found a key area of threat is ‘economic leverage’. They found governments needed to take measures to counter their susceptibility to this threat by building strong, adaptive infrastructures.

The impact:

Enabling better communication for travellers after terrorist attacks

With global online travel company Travelzoo, Dr Hillingdon worked on the design and analysis of a survey of 6,000 consumers worldwide to investigate consumer perception of safety and security on holiday. Combined with her previous findings about tourists’ risk perceptions, this informed a major media campaign in 2015-2017. In more than 100 interviews with national and international media, Dr Hillingdon conveyed that, while terrorist attacks might contribute to a decline in tourism in a specific region, demand would simply go elsewhere. The research was also published in the White Paper, “State of Play: the Impact of Geopolitical Events on International Tourism in 2017”, which concluded the tourism industry and governments should unite to provide clearer information on the safety and security of tourism destinations. In 2017, the UK Foreign Office announced the removal of the terrorism threat level descriptors used at the time, to be replaced with more information about the predictability, context and mitigation of any threat.

Encouraging countries to invest in tourism after terrorist attacks

Dr Hillingdon worked with the World Bank in 2018 to investigate the effects of terrorism on tourist development and growth in Central Asia. As a result of data collected from a survey of tour operators, as well as her own comparative research on the actions governments can take to mitigate the impact of terrorist activities on their tourism sectors, Dr Hillingdon was able to provide evidence which led to a full risk analysis. The project concluded the impact on tourism of specific terrorist attacks was likely to be negligible unless further attacks took place. The tourist sector in Central Asia was encouraged to continue its development, and it was noted this would reduce the likelihood of future attacks as it would decrease the poverty that makes countries like Tajikstan an easy recruitment target for groups such as ISIS.

Enhancing the UK government’s and NATO’s understanding of hybrid threats

Dr Hillingdon contributed to a major NATO research project aimed at deepening understanding of so-called hybrid threats and exploring how to assess them. This work, together with her focus on the need for a strong, resilient economic infrastructure, fed into a handbook on the most effective ways to counter hybrid warfare, now in use by the UK and 13 other governments worldwide.

Reading on Screen: enhancing the benefits of reading through engaging with digital technologies

Research areas: English, New Media, Communication, Literature

Staff conducting research: Professor Bronwen Thomas, Dr Julia Round

Background:

Researchers at BU have challenged the negative perceptions around digital reading, providing insights into how and why people read on digital platforms. This has led to the development of innovative methods which capture how technology has enriched reading, enabling new social and cultural benefits.

The research was prompted by Thomas’s early work on fanfiction – a form of narrative which has exploded in popularity on the internet, and which enables fans to create their own stories about characters or plots. Thomas applied theories and methods developed by media and cultural studies scholars, revealing how fanfiction challenged boundaries between authors and readers, creation and interpretation. She also extended this approach to the study of online literary communities, using a combination of interviews and analysis to show a thriving, productive virtual culture.

An AHRC-funded project in 2012 investigated how people read online, as well as the insights and opportunities digital platforms provide for education and the creative industries. Some of the findings were that a preference for printed or e-books depended on genre, and that posting creative work in online forums boosted confidence.

The AHRC Research Network Award (2013-2015) brought together 29 academics and consultants from multiple disciplines to review existing scholarly models for researching reading practice. From this, the network developed innovative techniques adapted to analysing digital reading and prioritising engagement with readers both on- and offline. Building on the findings from the network, BU analysed activities in literature forums, detecting behavioural patterns to understand how users interacted with each other. They found that groups connect users with shared interests, allowing them to shape discussions themselves, and that moderators play a crucial role in shaping group identities and maintaining community bonds. Collectively, this work demonstrated how digital platforms have altered yet enriched reading.

The impact:

In 2017/18 Thomas established the Reading on Screen project, with the University of Brighton, the Reading Agency and DigiTales, a participatory media company. Readers from a diverse range of backgrounds aged 18-87 created digital stories capturing their experiences of reading in the digital age. The project demonstrated how engagement with the digital, far from being confined to younger generations, is in fact also delivering extensive benefits for the older population. It also highlighted how both digital and print reading practices and preferences are shaped by local cultures and environments but that these can change through life experiences and intergenerational interactions. The project achieved the following impacts.

Policy change

Thomas worked closely with the ‘Axe the Reading Tax’ campaign led by the Publishers Association, with the Book Trust and the National Literacy, to develop a new campaign strategy based on highlighting how the tax affects the most vulnerable. The Chancellor announced that VAT on digital publications would be removed from December 2020, although it was ultimately removed earlier, on 1 May 2020.

Benefits to organisations and charities

The Reading Agency delivers a range of programmes to more than 1.4 million people a year and applied the insights from BU’s research – particularly how and why people read on digital devices – to their own work. DigiTales runs digital storytelling workshops with young people, refugees, and the homeless. After working on the Reading on Screen project, they adapted their facilitator training and workshop model to reflect the requirements of working alongside academics with specific research questions in mind. The project also directly led to the organisation working with other universities and provided traineeships for two participants.

Enriching lives

For the participants who created the Reading on Screen stories, finding their voice was a transformative experience. An unforeseen impact is the beneficial effect workshops have on participants with complex social/health issues in terms of social inclusion and emotional resilience. They had no prior experience of using digital technologies in creative contexts and described how the project increased their feelings self-worth and achievement, with some developing resilience and others enjoying increased social interaction.

Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

Funding opportunities

The RDS Funding Development Briefings occur weekly, on a Wednesday at 12 noon.

Each session covers the latest major funding opportunities, followed by a brief Q&A session. Some sessions also include a spotlight on a particular funding opportunity of strategic importance to BU.

Next Wednesday 9th June, there will be a spotlight on Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs).

We will cover:

  • Overview of KTPs
  • How to apply
  • Q & A

For those unable to attend, the session will be recorded and shared on Brightspace here.

Please email RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk to receive the Teams invite for these sessions.

New Book on Using Interactive Digital Narrative for Health & Science Communication

Book coverNew publication: Using Interactive Digital Narrative for Health & Science Communication

I’m delighted to announce that my new book publishes this week, as it provides an excellent example of the kinds of things we’re trying to do here at Bournemouth through the Sustainable Storytelling Lab and the Science, Health, and Data Communications Research Group: harness the power of narrative storytelling to effect positive behaviour change related to the UN SDGs. It also offers an overview of how two very interdisciplinary teams formed (thanks to a Crucible program) and established successful patterns of working, despite our vastly different spheres of expertise.

Book description:

Both the United Nations and the World Health Organization stress the need to address numerous increasingly urgent ‘global challenges’, including climate change and ineffectiveness of medication for communicable diseases.

Despite climate change resulting from human activity, most humans feel their contribution is minimal; thus any effort made toward reducing individual carbon footprint is futile. Likewise, individual patients feel their health is their own problem; current increases in outbreaks of formerly controllable diseases like measles and tuberculosis show that this is not the case. There is a dire need to instil a stronger sense of personal responsibility, to act as individuals to resolve global issues, and the pilot studies presented in Using Interactive Digital Narrative in Science and Health Education offer an entertainment-as-education approach: interactive digital narrative.

The researchers on these teams cross diverse disciplinary boundaries, with backgrounds in chemical engineering, microbiology, romantic studies, film studies, digital design, pedagogy, and psychology. Their approach in Using Interactive Digital Narrative in Science and Health Education to interdisciplinary research is discussed herein, as is the practice-based approach to crafting the interactive narratives for health and science communication and for specific audiences and contexts.

Research impact at BU: identifying malnutrition risk in older people & enhancing recovery after surgery

Celebrating BU’s impact case studies for REF 2021

New tools to identify older people at risk of malnutrition and improve their nutritional care

Research areas: Nutrition, Food Science, Health & Social Care

Staff conducting research: Professor Jane Murphy, Dr Joanne Holmes, Cindy Brooks, Dr Nirmal Aryal

Background: 

Malnutrition affects 1,300,000 (or 1 in 10) older adults living in the community, with far-reaching health consequences, an increased need for healthcare and higher rates of mortality. Research undertaken by Professor Murphy demonstrated that one of the key priorities for research into malnutrition and nutrition screening was the need for novel practical approaches to screening and tools that would allow for early intervention to prevent malnutrition. It also identified that limited training and a high turnover of staff in community teams created significant challenges in using the existing leading tool, the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST).

As well as identifying new ways of screening, Professor Murphy developed new interventions to reduce the risk of malnutrition in vulnerable groups, such as people with dementia (PwD), who are particularly at risk due to reduced appetite, difficulties associated with eating, and swallowing problems. A two-year, BU-led research project deployed innovative wearable technology for PwD in care homes to measure levels of physical activity, sleep patterns and energy expenditure, combined with information about their energy intake and nutritional status. It found that needs varied enormously between individuals, demonstrating the importance of person-centred care when considering how to support PwD to eat and drink well.

The impact:

BU researchers worked with the Patients Association to help test and refine the latter’s Nutrition Checklist, which has since been downloaded more than  2,000 times.  Professor Murphy wrote guidelines for using the checklist during the Covid-19 pandemic, and councils and NHS Trusts across the UK have been using it to screen their vulnerable populations. As the checklist was designed to be used by patients and carers, as well as professionals, it became a vital tool for diagnosing malnutrition in the community during this period.

Eat Well Age Well, a national project tackling malnutrition in older people living at home in Scotland also incorporated the checklist into its training and guidelines. More than 500 staff and volunteers were trained and nearly 700 older people screened by December 2020. Case studies included a 91-year-old and a 74-year-old who both gained weight after being given dietary advice after screening.

Key aspects of BU research were embedded in the National Dementia Training Standards Framework (2018), directly informing essential knowledge and skills on nutrition and hydration across nine of the 14 subjects for food and nutrition.

Professor’s Murphy’s research led to the development of a training toolkit to deliver person-centred nutritional care for PwD, which has been incorporated into guidance on websites including Dementia UK. Over 1,700 known recipients of the downloaded resources (including nurses and allied health professionals, hospital and care home staff from the UK and overseas) have reported benefits and action to reconfigure nutritional care.

Building on the success of the toolkit for the care workforce, 4,000 hard copies of a guide for family carers of PwD were distributed nationally. A survey of carers who used the guide found positive changes to PwD’s appetite and fluid intake, with feedback demonstrating that carers have been empowered to make changes to support their relatives.

Reducing costs and improving patient outcomes through Enhanced Recovery After Surgery approaches in orthopaedics

Research areas: Orthopaedics, Physiotherapy

Staff conducting research: Professor Robert Middleton, Associate Professor Tom Wainwright, Louise Burgess, Tikki Immins

Background:

In 2010, Professor Middleton and Associate Professor Wainwright published the results of the first UK study to implement Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) within orthopaedics. The study followed 2,391 consecutive hip and knee joint replacement patients at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital, where they found high levels of staff and patient satisfaction, along with good clinical outcomes, following the implementation of ERAS. The average length of stay (LOS) decreased from 7.8 days to 4.1 days and there was no increase in the rate of complications or readmissions. Wainwright and Middleton presented the first data to assess ERAS in much older people and found patients aged 85 years+ went home four days earlier after hip replacement compared to case-matched patients elsewhere in the UK.

The BU researchers recommended the implementation of ERAS within orthopaedics at other hospitals, stating that major economic and capacity savings could be realised at the same time as improving key aspects of patient care. They conducted the first systematic review examining patient experience of ERAS in hip and knee replacements and the research confirmed that patient satisfaction was high and not adversely affected by ERAS.

They have also sought to optimise elements of the pathway known to directly affect patient experience, such as pre-operative education. BU research was the first to demonstrate that for patients this is most important, and showed that those undergoing knee replacement, who were considered at high risk of an extended LOS, and who attended an education class prior to surgery, stayed, on average, 2.58 days less in hospital

In 2015, BU established the Orthopaedic Research Institute to advance research in orthopaedic surgery: it has since expanded to include advocating ERAS for fractured neck of femur, ankle replacement surgery, shoulder replacement surgery and the first ever paper on ERAS for major spine surgery.

The impact:

Following a series of education sessions conducted by Middleton and Wainwright in New Zealand, ERAS principles were implemented in 18 of the country’s participating district health boards for more than 11,000 people having elective hip and knee replacements and acute patients with fractured neck of femur, or broken hip – a potentially life-threatening injury, especially in older people. The results were significant:

  • average LOS fell from 4.63 to 4.05 days for hip replacement surgery and from 5.00 to 4.29 days for knee-replacement surgery, resulting in a nominal saving of NZ$ 1.8 million
  • the number of blood transfusions fell from 13.9% to 9.2% for hip replacements, from 17.8% to 5.5% for knee replacements, and 31.9% to 27.5% for fractured neck of femur, resulting in a nominal saving of NZ$516,000.

Wainwright has worked with the Scottish Government to implement a national programme to improve standards of care for orthopaedic joint arthroplasty patients across all 22 units in Scotland. Data collected from the Musculoskeletal Audit on behalf of the Scottish Government between September – December 2013 showed:

  • an increase from 21% (2010) to 92% (2013) of hip and knee arthroplasty patients benefitting from ERAS and
  • a decrease in LOS from 5.6 days (2010) to 4.8 days (2013).

A survey last year of attendees of the education sessions in New Zealand noted a range of benefits for patients as a result of implementing ERAS. Respondents reported shorter hospital stays, fewer complications and positive feedback from patients.

Next post: the effects of terrorism on tourism & reading on screen.

Invitation to the Medical Science Virtual STEAMLab 2021

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

On Thursday 22nd July 2021 from 2-4pm, RDS will be hosting a virtual STEAMLab event under the strategic investment area (SIA) of Medical Science. It will be the third of a series to 2-hour long virtual STEAMLabs to be held in the course of 2021.

The ideas generated at this event may also be used to help select colleagues for further Scramble events at short notice.

Booking onto this event

To take part in this exciting opportunity, we ask all participants to download and complete the Application Form and return this to Lisa Andrews by Monday 14th June.

By applying, you agree to attend for the full duration of the event on 22nd July from 2pm – 4pm. Places at the event are limited and you will be contacted to confirm your “virtual space” by 21st June 2021

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact RDS Research Facilitators Lisa Andrews or Ehren Milner.

The Brief

We’re seeking to come up with highly innovative and urgently required research which is ambitious in scope and will require a high level of expertise, commitment and funding. The research must address challenges in the field of Medical Science.

In short, we anticipate the development of innovative, ground-breaking cross-disciplinary and ambitious projects which have the capacity to attract significant, high value external funding from the public and private sectors in the future.

We would also like to use this opportunity to further collaborations with our local clinical colleagues, and are delighted to be welcoming a number of attendees from local NHS Trusts to join us at this event.

Who should attend?

We welcome those who wish to contribute to having a positive impact through addressing scientific challenges, but in particular, we are specifically targeting the following:

  1. Those academics whose research aligns with one or more of the BU’s core research areas, or whose research would benefit from the multidisciplinary, collaborative engagement supported by the Medical Science SIA;
  2. Those who have experience of involvement in medium to large scale research projects.

Some Answers to your FAQs:

Do I need to do anything in advance?

During the STEAMLab, you’ll be guided through a process which results in the development of collaborative research ideas. To aid us in this process, we will be using the platform Padlet to discuss and share ideas on a number of research themes ahead of the event. This will enable us to identify the themes of the day by asking you as the attendees to contribute your thoughts and ideas ahead of the STEAMLab.

What is the immediate objective?

The objective by the end of the STEAMLab is to have scoped some leading and grand ideas around which a working group or cluster can be formed to take forward towards the development of a large grant application. This event is run to facilitate new interdisciplinary research collaborations.

What do I need to do afterwards?

Your project idea may be “oven-ready”, but it is more likely that you/your group’s project idea/s will require some time to crystallise fully, and for the optimum partners to be found for the building a winning consortium. To this end, it is envisaged that you and your potential collaborators will be committed to meeting on a regular basis, with a firm timetable.

What if my topic area is very specialised, within fields such as medical diagnostics or environmental science?

Your contribution will be very welcome! One of the main benefits of a STEAMLab event is to bring together individuals with a range of backgrounds and specialisms who are able to see things just that bit differently to one another.

Two education chapters published by BU academics

Centre for Excellence in Learning, innovation, Publishing, REF Subjects, writing

This week saw saw the publication of two book chapters on very different aspects of university education.  First, Prof. Debbie Holley, Dr. Ben Goldsmith and Dr. David Fevyer co-authored ‘Inspiring Learning through Technologies’.   This is chapter 5 in the newly published second edition of the textbook Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education published by SAGE [1].

And just a three days ago Emerald Publishing published a chapter on external examining in The Role of External Examining in Higher Education: Challenges and Best Practices.  The chapter ‘Acting as External Examiners in the UK: Going Beyond Quality Assurance’ [2] is co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and FHSS Visiting Facutly Prof. Padam Simkhada (University of Huddersfield) and Dr. Amudha Poobalan (University of Aberdeen).

 

References:

  1. Holley, D., Goldsmith, B., Fevyer, D. (2021) Inspiring Learning through Technologies, In: Pokorny, H., Warren, D. (eds.) Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education (2nd edn), London: SAGE: pp. 107-134.
  2. Poobalan, A., Simkhada, P. and van Teijlingen, E. (2021) Acting as External Examiners in the UK: Going Beyond Quality Assurance, In: Sengupta, E., Blessinger, P., Ssemwanga, A. and Cozza, B. (eds.) The Role of External Examining in Higher Education: Challenges and Best Practices (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 38), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 13-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120210000038002