Saturday, July 18, 2009

Human Factors Evaluation of PDAs and Smartphones in Nursing Practice

Looking to upgrade your PDA or smart phone?
Before you buy, click on the title to see the results of this recent study.

Objective:
To determine which design features of popular mobile devices are supportive of various nursing tasks. Device usability was determined via performance and user perceptions of the following five mobile devices:
◦Nokia N810
◦Blackberry Bold
◦Apple iPhone 3G
◦Palm Treo 680
◦HP iPAQ 210

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Friday, July 10, 2009

Student Nurse Association Election Results

Dear Students & Faculty,
I would like you to join the SNA Officers and myself in congratulating the newly elected Officers for IUON’s Student Nurse Association (SNA) Fall Semester 2009:
President: Amanda Barnes
Vice President: Rachita Patel
Secretary: Kristen Foster
Treasurer: Chris French
I am certain that with the support of their fellow student nurses, this team will accomplish great things next semester! Congratulations again to Amanda, Rachita, Kristen and Chris. I would like to encourage all nursing students to become a member of the association. Our officers are quite competent, but will certainly still need YOUR help to achieve their goals.
Thank you,
Juliet Battice, RN, B.Soc.Sc, BSN
Clinical Nurse Instructor

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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

PubMed Central Canada

An important new partnership initiative was announced yesterday in Ottawa, Canada. The National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) will be working together to establish PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada). This will be a searchable, web-based, national digital repository of peer-reviewed health and life sciences literature providing free and open access to Canadian health research. Click on the title to read the press release.

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Thursday, July 02, 2009

The APA Style Guide has been Updated



The 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual [APA Style Guide] is coming off the presses as we read. So for a heads-up on what is new, check out this online tutorial from APA.

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Are our Med students 'neurophobic'?

An interesting study conducted by Farid Youssef at the University of the West Indies SOM indictes that 'neurophobia' probably exists among their medical students, giving rise to concerns regarding the impact this will have on future patients.
"Neurophobia and it's implications: Evidence from a Caribbean medical school." (July 1, 2009) BMC Medical Education 2009, 9:39.

"Neurology is regarded as a difficult component of the medical curriculum. This has been so marked that the term neurophobia and its effects are being investigated. Given the impact of neurological disorders worldwide, neurophobia has the potential to affect the diagnosis and management of such cases."

The study determined that neurology was the subject students found the most difficult and had the least knowledge of. The difficulty seemed to stem from the need to know basic neuroscience and the complex clinical examination associated with neurology. In conclusion some suggestions are put forward to address this finding:
~ provide students with greater clinical and practical exposure
~ spend more time on the subject
~ improve the teaching skills of lecturers
~ re-visit the approach to neurology and neuroscience education
Click on the title for open access to the article.

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