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Biomedical subjects

S Glen

Publications and source records attributed to S Glen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Role transition from staff nurse to clinical nurse specialist: a case study.

Over the last decade, nursing in the United Kingdom has witnessed a major development and expansion in the number of Clinical Nurse Specialists. These nurses are considered to be experts in their own specialities, have in-depth knowledge and provide a service for patients, relatives and staff. There is, however, a paucity of literature relating to role transition from experienced Staff Nurse to Clinical Nurse Specialist. Using Nicholson's (1984) model of work-role transition and Wanous' (1992) four-stage model of organizational socialization, this study explores the transition of two nurses from experienced Staff Nurses to novice Clinical Nurse Specialists.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1998

Emotional and motivational tendencies: the key to quality nursing care?

The question of how to improve the quality of nursing care is quite properly perceived to be at the heart of the contemporary nursing debate. Yet it is not clear what quality in health care is; nor is it clear what quality nursing care is. This article will explore why quality issues are such a matter of concern in public and political debate and how different concepts of quality determine different definitions of nursing. The former definitions constitute a developmental continuum of nursing from minimally acceptable levels of competence to excellence. It is argued that the quality of nursing cannot be assessed in terms of performance referenced criteria, but only in terms of the personal qualities displayed in the performance. The key to improvement in practice may be the improvement of emotional and motivational tendencies. In essence, professional development implies personal development.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1998

The key to quality nursing care: towards a model of personal and professional development.

Quality of nursing cannot be assessed in terms of performance referenced criteria, but only in terms of the personal qualities displayed in the performance. The key to improvement in practice may be the improvement of emotional and motivational tendencies. In essence, professional development implies personal development. Harré makes a distinction between 'powers to do' and 'powers to be' (a state of being). The former are the capacities that individuals acquire to perform their tasks and roles. Professional development therefore involves, first, the acquisition of the capacities necessary for the successful completion of a set of professional tasks (the powers to do). Secondly, it involves the acquisition of the appropriate emotions and motivations, and the theories about human nature and the conduct that underpins them (the powers to be). Therefore, these capacities cannot be derived from analysis of tasks, since what are defined as tasks in the first place are determined by the exercise of such powers. The acquisition of attitudes constitutes a source of competent practice. Harré's model of 'personal identity' provides a conceptual framework for thinking about the process of the acquisition of nursing competence and its relationship to differing views of nursing. Considerations relating to different priorities within Harré's model make it possible to raise questions about the objectives of competence at different stages.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1998

Proglucagon and glucose transporter mRNA is altered by diet and disease susceptibility in 30-day-old biobreeding (BB) diabetes-prone and normal rats.

Diet is an important factor influencing the development of diabetes in the Biobreeding (BB) rat. Changes in gut development and absorption of nutrients in the diabetes-prone rat (Bbdp) and the subsequent effect on pancreatic function may play a role in the ultimate development of the disease. BBdp and normal (BBn) dams were fed one of three diets, chow or semipurified diets containing either soy or casein as the protein source. Pups were weaned at 21 d onto the same diet as their respective dam and killed at 30 d. Chow-fed BBn animals weighed significantly more than casein- or soy-fed BBn animals. Chow-fed BBdp had significantly greater small intestine and colon weight when expressed on a per body weight basis than BBn. With all three diets, BBdp animals had significantly lower colonic proglucagon mRNA abundance than did BBn animals. Adjusting for total colonic RNA content resulted in only casein- and soy-fed BBdp animals demonstrating significantly lower colonic proglucagon mRNA abundance than did BBn animals. BBn animals had higher levels of sodium-dependent D-glucose cotransporter (SGLT)-1 and sodium-independent glucose transporter (GLUT) 5 mRNA than did BBdp. Within BBn animals, casein and soy produced significantly lower levels of SGLT-1 and GLUT5 mRNA than did chow. This study demonstrates that BBn and BBdp animals respond differently to chow versus semipurified weaning diets. These differences may explain the differences in growth and intestinal development among the BBdp and BBn strains weaned onto different diets.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Confidentiality: a critique of the traditional view.

'Confidentiality' can become a somewhat embellishing signboard for paternalistic caring. In essence, one needs to distinguish between confidentiality as a respectful attitude to a patient/client, where it becomes credible that the caring professional will not misuse the information he or she obtains about the patient/client, and between confidentiality misused as an instrument of power to keep the patient/client outside of processes in which it might be important or advantageous for him or her to participate.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1995

Image directed proton spectroscopy of gerbil brain at 7 tesla.

Image directed localized 1H NMR spectra were obtained at 7 T (300 MHz) from cubic volumes of less than 40 microL in the gerbil brain. Signals from cerebral metabolites commonly detected in other rodent species were easily assigned, and high resolution spectroscopy (360 MHz) of aqueous brain extracts assisted the tentative identification of partially overlapping resonances from lower concentration compounds like alanine, lysine, gamma-aminobutyrate, valine, leucine and isoleucine. Weak coupling at 7 T was manifest in the resolution of signals from the gamma-CH2 groups of glutamine and glutamate. Down-field of water, signals assigned to purine nucleotides were conspicuous in the extract spectra, but localized spectra acquired routinely in vivo, using selective excitation and gradient crushing (SUBMERGE) for water suppression, exhibited little or no signal from purines. When localized in vivo spectra were acquired without water suppression, however, or using a low power binomial excitation sequence rather than SUBMERGE, a broad signal appeared at the resonant frequency of purine aromatic protons. NMR experiments on the nucleotide adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP) in 90% glycerol/10% D2O solution demonstrated that pre-irradiation of the water signal even for less than 100 ms attenuated the nucleotide signal appreciably. This implies that the soft pulses required for selective excitation of water in sequences such as SUBMERGE induce spin-diffusion which eliminates or diminishes the signal from nucleotides in vivo.

Acetates↗
PubMed1995

Towards a new model of nursing education.

We are witnessing the most significant changes in the nature of the relationship between nursing education and higher education. However, there has yet to be a more philosophical explanation of what it would mean for our aims and practices as nurse educators if we were to take seriously the notion of nursing education within the context of higher education. This paper analyses the role of the university and raises the questions: What should higher education mean today? What should higher education mean for nursing? In response to the former question it is suggested there cannot be a total distinction between the concept 'higher education' and the socio-political context. Higher education has to be realized in particular historical societies and there is likely to be much controversy over how this should be done. In response to the latter question it is suggested that to warrant the title nursing 'higher education' the process should promise a freeing of the mind but also beyond, to bring about a new level of self-empowerment in the individual student. In essence, it should contain an emancipatory element. It is the articulation of normative aspirations such as these, that is so strikingly absent from so much of the debate relating to nursing education merging with higher education. Nursing education must not however fall victim to 'academic drift' which has often been regarded as a distinctive and persistent feature of higher education. It might be proposed that student nurses who move from an educational to a practice setting are subjected to 'a competing paradigm of occupational vocationalism'.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Curriculum↗
PubMed1995

Reflecting on reflection: a personal encounter.

This paper reports a retrospective study of a Senior Lecturer in Nursing Studies experience of supervising a student teacher who, as part of her teaching placement experience, utilised 'Critically Reflective Analysis of an Educational Event' as a means to assess her teaching in the practice setting. The Senior Lecturer and student nurse teacher used an external 'advisor' to facilitate their meta-reflection on the theoretical perspectives that informed the process in which they were engaged. The paper raises the following questions for consideration--What is the link between ability to reflect and quality of practice? Is it possible to utilise reflective tutorials as a means of assessing professional competence whilst at the same time encouraging personal and professional development? Is the ability to reflect on practice dependent on the context? Should we assume that all practitioners have the necessary skills to supervise students in practice and what preparation and support is needed? The paper demonstrates that by introducing 'Critically Reflective Analysis of an Education Event' into the student teachers' curriculum the role of both supervisor and student teacher was challenged and changed. The paper also demonstrates that reflective tutorials are not wholly a retrospective business. They are creative, or recreative of a teaching experience, as well as to some extent representing it. Finally, even if one cannot speak in Kuhnian parlance, of a conceptual revolution, it would seem legitimate to say, in Schon's terms, that the contextual frame in which professional problems are addressed has undergone significant change.

Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate↗
PubMed1993

The validation event: a critical appraisal?

Apart from the perennial concern with finance, questions of 'quality' and 'accountability' will be the principle themes in the higher education debate in the 1990s. The whole issue of 'quality' and 'accountability' has become critically important to the success or otherwise of colleges of nursing and midwifery in convincing their multiple stakeholders (clients, patients, students and purchasers) that they should have a place in the marketing of nursing and midwifery education. The validation process is an important component of the formalized quality assurance mechanism of a course. There have, however, been little or no empirical data relating to the effect of validation processes on quality of courses and, more important, in the long term, quality of care. The following issues are explored in the paper. How are 'quality' and 'accountability' defined within the context of a market orientated system? How is 'peer review' to be interpreted within a purchaser led system? Are practice outcomes prioritised within educationally led, practice-based courses? Is there a part to play for continuing external regulation? We suggest that recent developments in nursing and midwifery education have often been undermined, during validation events, by structural processes for conformity. Such a regression to the conventional has been strengthened by the absence of new conceptions of quality deliberately designed to match these innovatory courses. Conceptions, that is, framed in terms distinct from the traditional model in which quality in higher education tends to be regarded as largely an attribute of disciplinary knowledge. Finally, we suggest that the decisive determinant of professional skill, is the personal standards, the professionalism and the self-respect of the individual teacher.

Accreditation↗
PubMed1992

Portfolios: an 'affective' assessment strategy?

The curriculum research and development work undertaken to facilitate the implementation of a portfolio assessment strategy, as an integral component of a Project 2000 course, is described. Many excellent assessment schemes have floundered at the point of being put in to use, thus the question of consultation, reflection and preparation needs to figure from the early stages in the scheme is to be successful. This should include in-service education for nurse and midwifery educators and preparation of students. The principle questions explored in the paper are: What educational values do portfolios have? Against what criteria should students make decisions in relation to content? Against what criteria are educators to assess portfolios? The issue of evaluation of portfolio schemes is likely to determine whether portfolios maintain the important place they have captured in the nursing and midwifery education imagination. Finally, it is argued that innovations, such as portfolios, should be seen as catalysts, as points of departure, rather than as things to be implemented.

Education, Nursing↗
PubMed1991

A corporate college of nursing and midwifery philosophy: a strategy for managing change.

This paper is an account of the process of identifying a college of nursing and midwifery corporate philosophy. This process represents one component of a change strategy for managing an amalgamation between three schools of nursing to form one college of nursing and midwifery. The paper is divided into four sections: Literature review, Methodological approach, Lessons learned and Managing change: a way forward. The literature review draws on what is described, in general education, as the school/college 'effectiveness literature'. This literature emphasises why the building of corporate norms is so important and that real change in the organization of a college cannot occur without the college redefining its commitments. A methodological approach embedded in grounded theory is described. This approach facilitated the discovery of colleagues' views from their perspective, and within their working context. It also enabled all the staff to take part in the process of identifying a corporate philosophy, which would subsequently underpin the college's educational policy and practice. This process was therefore conceptualised as an attempt to provide 'ownership' for a working corporate philosophy. In the final section it is suggested that many of the theories of change nurse and midwifery educators draw upon are conceptually and practically inadequate, as a basis for action in the socio-political climate of the 1990s. Effective approaches to the management of multiple changes calls for combining and balancing factors that do not apparently go together--in essence a dialectical approach to the management of change in nurse and midwifery education.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1990

Power for nursing education.

The topic of power and politics is a recurrent theme in the nursing literature, but not, I wish to suggest, in the nursing educational literature. This paper introduces the topic of power as a nursing educational issue. It is divided into three sections: (a) what a concept of power might mean for nursing education; (b) the nature and form of power relationships within nursing education; and (c) the nature, form and efficacy of the current professional strategies to gain power. First, two definitions of power for nursing education are explored: (a) the power inherent in organizational structures; and (b) the notion of practising nursing education as an empowering profession. Next, a theoretical framework is applied to specific examples of power relationships within nursing education. Two views of power and their inter-relationship with decision-making in curriculum matters are described: 'overt conflict' and 'control of the institution's agenda'. It is argued that these still fail to pick up important instances of the strategies to gain power. Finally, examples of strategies used to gain power in colleges of nursing are made explicit. Concurrently, questions are raised in relation to their efficacy and alternative strategies more congruent with the role of professional educator are advocated. It is argued that nursing education's most lasting form of power will rest in the development of pedagogical knowledge expertise and a research basis: in essence, the development of an academic identity in nursing education.

Career Mobility↗
PubMed1989

Self-reported depressive symptomatology, mood ratings, and treatment outcome in sleep disorders patients.

Based on self-rating questionnaire evaluation of symptoms of major affective disorder, 67% of patients who presented to a major sleep disorders center reported an episode of depression within the previous 5 years, and 26% described themselves as depressed at presentation. Furthermore, patients with sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or sleep-related periodic leg movements all averaged high rates of self-reported depressive symptomatology, which suggests that sleep disorders should be considered in the differential diagnosis of affective disorders, and vice versa. Change scores on the Profile of Mood States were obtained for four subgroups of patients who were undergoing conventional treatment. Significant improvement in scores was observed in obstructive sleep apneics treated surgically and in patients with sleep-related periodic leg movements placed on clonazepam, but not in narcoleptics placed on a stimulant or in insomniacs with chronic use of sedative-hypnotic drugs who were withdrawn from sleep medications. Differential improvement in POMS scores after treatment for different sleep disorders could mean that the relationship to mood disturbance differs for different sleep disorders.

Adolescent↗