Tagged / medicine

New textbook for medical students

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Publishing, Training, writing

Experts from universities across the UK have contributed to a new edition of a best-selling textbook which is out this month.  This is the fourth edition of Psychology and Sociology Applied to Medicine which is a jargon-free 179-page introduction to psychology and sociology for medical students (and other health care students). The book is published by one of the largest academic publishers in the world, Elsevier in its series of Illustrated Colour Texts.

Seventy-three academics contributed chapters to the book which was edited by psychologist Prof. Gerry Humphris (University of St. Andrews) and sociologist Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University). The contributors are discipline and topic experts and come mainly from the UK but some are from further afield such as Ireland and Australia.   Compared to the third edition this latest edition has 45 new authors, who contribute the most up-to-date knowledge on classical psychological and sociological concepts and issues.  All chapters have been updated and several have been renamed and revamped to reflect changes in society, and three new ones have been added.  The editors are very grateful to Catherine Calderwood, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, for writing the Foreword.

Teaching behavioural and social sciences to students is of vital importance for good health care in the future. This textbook covers topics across the life cycle from birth to death. A range of concepts and issues such as health screening, personality & health, quality of life, self-care, and anxiety are explained in an easy to understand fashion. This makes the textbook excellent introductory text as well as an essential revision tool for students. This textbook for medical students is Bournemouth University’s latest contribution to medical training.

 

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2019)Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (4th Edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier  The book is available as eBook [ISBN: 9780702062995] and as paperback [ISBN: 9780702062988].

What happens when things go wrong in medicine?

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences

1-day BU conference/workshop examining what happens when things go wrong in surgery, 8th September 2017

Every day we make mistakes; we pick up the wrong set of keys from the kitchen drawer, pick up the wrong identical suitcase from the airport carousel, or, in the case of the Oscars, a near identical envelope is given to Warren Beatty who then announces the wrong Best Film winner.

What happens when things go wrong in surgery where the consequences can be much more serious?  While attention, quite rightly, focuses on patient need when things go wrong, the aim of this event is to examine how medical professionals can be better supported and trained to cope with these adverse events.

Eminent speakers from around the UK will present the latest research in the area, share insights from their surgical careers and personal experiences and will consider:-

Impact – The personal impact when complications and errors arise in surgery

Resilience – Dealing with stress and maintaining wellbeing

Restoration – what can be done when things go wrong?

While the focus is on surgeons, it is clear that those in other medical professions (e.g. nurses, midwives, GPs) face similar issues in the workplace. Anyone with an interest in the topic is welcome to attend (attendance is free for BU staff).   For further details and to register for the conference please visit www.surgeonwellbeing.co.uk or contact Professor Siné McDougall (smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk; ext. 61722).

Third Edition of the EU Falls Festival in Amsterdam (8-9 May 2017)

Student Engagement


Natalia Adamczewska and Yolanda Barrado-Martín represented the Psychology Department and Ageing & Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) at the Third Edition of the EU Falls Festival in Amsterdam on 8th and 9th May 2017. The theme of the congress was: Developing Collaborations across Professions and throughout Europe.

This festival brought together over 200 professionals from multiple disciplines (such as Nursing, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Medicine, Psychology and Technology) working under a common target: The prevention of falls amongst older adults. It was a great opportunity to see how different countries in Europe, but also researchers in America, represented by Dr. Robin Lee, US Lead Home and Recreation Team; and Australia, represented by Kim Delbaere, Falls Balance and Injury Centre, NeuRa; are working under this objective, the resources different countries invest on this and the different approaches used from different disciplines. A variety of interventions were presented from educational to exercise, and a debate was organised regarding the relevance of the role of technologies to prevent falls and support research.

Falls are the first external cause of death amongst older adults which explains the importance of researchers, practitioners and policy makers working together.​ Members of the World Health Organisation and the European Commission were also attending this meeting and sharing their views on the relevance of falls prevention.

Yolanda’s PhD project looks into the acceptability and adherence of participants living with dementia to a Tai Chi exercise intervention. Adherence to falls interventions was one the main concerns of the congress, however, the experiences of those living with dementia remain mostly under-explored.

Natalia focuses on the psychological adjustment to falls in her PhD project and she looks at fall-related PTSD. Various interventions presented at the festival could possibly be applied in order to enable participants to cope with psychological consequences of falling, such as virtual reality treatment presented by Jeff Hausdorff that he originally developed for fall prevention in idiopathic fallers.

New publication: vital signs obstetric charts

PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations on the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences team which had its paper ‘Vital signs and other observations used to detect deterioration in pregnant women: an analysis of vital sign charts in consultant-led UK maternity units’ accepted by the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia (published by Elsevier). 
The paper compares: (i) vital sign values used to define physiological normality; (ii) symptoms and signs used to escalate care; (iii) 24 type of chart used; and (iv) presence of explicit instructions for escalating care. The authors conclude that the wide range of ‘normal’ vital sign values in different systems used in the UK and the Channel Islands suggests a lack of equity in the processes for detecting deterioration and escalating care in hospitalised pregnant and postnatal women. Agreement regarding ‘normal’ vital sign ranges is urgently required and would assist the development of a standardised obstetric early warning system and chart. The lead author of this new paper is FHSS Visiting Professor Gary Smith, his co-authors include FHSS staff Vanora Hundley, Lisa Gale_Andrews and Edwin van Teijlingen as well as three BU Visiting Faculty: Debra Bick (King’s College London), Mike Wee (Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) and Richard Isaacs (University Hospital Southampton).

Presentations from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) infoday are now available online.

The infoday was organised on the IMI Call for Proposals on the topic “European Lead Factory: Joint European compound library and screening centre”.

Presentations included an update on the revised IMI Strategic Research Agenda and IMI rules and procedures. Among the changes in the rules are:
•the new option for using real indirect costs in addition to the option of the 20% indirect cost flat rate;
•average or actual personnel costs can be used;
•Certificates on the Financial Statements (CFS) are now only due once a threshold of EUR 375,000 is reached;
•and periodic reports are now either due in July or December each year.
A presentation was also given on how to write a successful IMI proposal. This included general advice and participants were taken through the most common mistakes made in previous rounds.