Friday, November 27, 2009

Enjoy a 3 Minute Comedy Break with Brian Malow!



Want more? click on the title...

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 12:09 PM 0 comments

NEJM Medical Image Challenge

Some diagnostic fun for 4th Semester Clinical Medicine students ~ thanks to Dr. Sayeed for pulling this together from the New England Journal of Medicine's gallery of medical images.
Nejm Medical Image Challenge
View more presentations from DR AHMED SAYEED.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 10:20 AM 0 comments

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Appealing for a 'Culture of Integrity" in Our Nursing Schools

Academic dishonesty, such as plagiarism and cheating on tests, seems to be on the rise in our institutions of higher education including nursing schools! A number of factors seem to be contributing to this sad state of affairs; such as the proliferation of online exams, copying from the Internet, as well as a general deterioration of ethics among this generation of students. Such are the findings of a new research study of nursing students published in the latest issue of the Journal of Nursing Education.
"When I began this project, I expected to demonstrate the greater integrity of nursing students versus students in other disciplines, but that has not turned out to be the case ..The finding that more than half of the nursing students, as well as approximately half of the graduate nursing students...self-reported one or more classroom cheating behaviors is discouraging. The fact that these proportions seem to be higher than those for non-nursing students is even more disturbing."
So what can be done? The article concludes that in fact "Faculty have a major role in controlling cheating and promoting academic integrity." The reasons given are that students rise to faculty expectations so they need to role model academic integrity.
"I believe that we should develop a 'culture of integrity'. We need to instill in our students the importance of honesty and integrity and how that translates to ethical behavior in our nursing practice."
Click on title to login to EBSCO CINAHL database to read the full text.
Citation: McCabe, D. (2009). Academic dishonesty in nursing schools: an empirical investigation. Journal of Nursing Education, 48(11), 614-623. Retrieved from CINAHL with Full Text database.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 9:07 AM 0 comments

Friday, November 20, 2009

Inter-Specialty Rivalry is Alive and Well and Impacting our Medical Students

The Lancet Student takes a hard look at 'inter-specialty rivalry' in all it's manifestations, and how it has and does effect the career choices of each new generation of physicians.
"Sweeping generalisations such as 'the medics are the clever geeks and the surgeons are the cool heroes’ may masquerade in jest but both health professionals and the media have a huge obligation to project a positive image of their own specialty rather than badmouthing others ... it is through an attitude of arrogance and disregard for others choices ... that a universal hierarchy of specialties has been allowed to persist... such a chain of command may eventually influence the priority level of various specialties within healthcare and thus impinge upon patient treatment."
Click on the title to read the full article "Why does everyone love a brain surgeon?" by Priya Garg, 5th year medical student at Imperial College, London.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 11:55 AM 0 comments

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009
View more documents from Jane Hart.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 11:27 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 16, 2009

The Front Lines of Primary Health Care: Comparing 11 Countries


The Commonwealth Fund conducted a survey of more than 10,000 primary care physicians in 11 countries to compare perspectives, care, costs and experiences.
"Across the globe, countries are working to redesign their primary care systems by investing in information technology, round-the-clock access, teamwork, integration, and quality improvement."
"A Survey of Primary Care Physicians in 11 Countries, 2009: Perspectives on Care, Costs, and Experiences" (November 5, 2009) Schoen C [et al] Health Affairs Web Exclusive.
Also for interactive, custom statistics visit the new Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy and Data Center.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 11:49 AM 0 comments

Friday, November 13, 2009

Engaging the Campus 'We Generation'

What else is new in information technology? A 'culture of innovation' is permeating education today and information technology is it 'up to their necks'!
Read this excellent article by Jennifer Pagliaro published in the latest edition of Macleans: On Campus , "Networking U: How IT is helping educators engage students in new ways".

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 2:52 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Striving for Quality in Tertiary Education in the Caribbean


The 6th Annual CANQATE 2009 conference:
Balancing Quality and Quantity: The Global Challenge for Tertiary Education was held in Bridgetown, Barbados October 6~8, 2009.

However if you missed the event or you wish to revisit it, click on the title to view pictures, and access plenary sessions & presentations of the conference, in .pdf and powerpoint, from their website.

Note the paper presented on Medical Education in the Caribbean
by Lorna Parkins Director CAAM-HP.

CANQATE stands for Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 8:23 AM 0 comments

Friday, November 06, 2009

Face-to-Face vs. Facebook

For our plugged-in, internet savvy, Gen Y's the question arises; when it comes to the bigger, deeper emotional issues are you going to seek therapy online or are you still going to prefer face-to-face therapy?
Our very own professor Dr. Vickie Rogers set out to determine the response from a perspective that had not been previously studied, that of the psychiatric nurse.
"The purpose of this study was to compare differences in emotional self-disclosure between young adult Internet users who prefer face-to-face therapy to those who prefer Internet therapy. A convenience sample of 328 was recruited from Facebook to complete an online survey. A total of 263 preferred face-to-face therapy (F2FT) while 65 preferred Internet therapy (IT). Significant differences were found with the F2FT group willing to disclose emotions of depression, jealously, anxiety, and fear to a therapist more frequently than the IT group. The majority reported a preference for F2FT over IT." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
This study provides an important first step to determine the emotional self-disclosure differences and preferences in our young adult population. Given the high number of participants that reported a history of therapy, a need for psychiatric nurses to reach out with new ways to deliver therapy to better serve these clients, seems warranted.
Full-text of the article was published in October in the journal, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, and is available on Reserve in the Library.

Citation: Rogers, V., Griffin, M., Wykle, M., & Fitzpatrick, J. (2009). Internet versus Face-to-Face Therapy: Emotional Self-Disclosure Issues for Young Adults. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 30(10), 596-602. doi:10.1080/01612840903003520.

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posted by Ann Celestine @ 10:33 AM 0 comments