Sue Harris | PubMed Health

PubMed2004

Is our student portfolio valued?

A student portfolio was introduced for pre-registration nursing students at the University of Glamorgan in October 1997. The impetus for doing so was the recognised need to address:the 'theory-practice' divide;the need to provide nurse students with skills that will enable them to maintain the Professional Profile for registration purposes (). This article reports a research study evaluating the student portfolio. The main objectives of the evaluation were to investigate whether the portfolio addressed the perceived needs and to identify if students were experiencing potential benefits by using the portfolio. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with students and staff about their usage and perceptions of the portfolio. These findings were used to inform the design of the questionnaire to investigate students' experiences of using the portfolio, and their views about its usefulness. The questionnaires (n=219) confirmed the impression that students are not making frequent use of the portfolio. Students mainly discussed sections relating to academic aspects of the course. The summative assessment (essays) section was discussed by the greatest proportion of students (51% n=108). More students (74%) felt that too little time was spent on the portfolio than any other aspect of the course. Although many students and staff appreciate the potential value of using the portfolio, it is not a requirement of the course and so tends not to be treated as a high priority. Many of the recommendations from this study focussed on ways of integrating the portfolio into the course in order to increase its use. The results of this study have informed the development of an All Wales Student Portfolio introduced in April 2002 (Welsh Assembly Government, 2002).

Clinical Competence↗

PubMed2002

Hair follicle dermal cells repopulate the mouse haematopoietic system.

Skin and hair follicle stem cell biology is the focus of increasing interest, not least because the adult hair follicle has well defined dermal and epithelial populations that display distinct developmental properties. Recent evidence suggests that a number of adult cell populations have much broader stem cell capabilities than previously thought. To examine whether this applied to the hair follicle, and with a view to developing the follicle as a stem cell model system we investigated whether adult hair follicles were capable of demonstrating haematopoietic stem cell activity. To investigate haematopoietic activity in hair follicles we first used in vitro haematopoietic colony assays. This demonstrated that rodent hair follicle end bulbs as well as micro-dissected dermal papilla and dermal sheath cells actively produced cells of erythroid and myeloid lineages but that follicle epithelial cells did not. As a more stringent test, we then transplanted cultured dermal papilla or dermal sheath cells from transgenically marked donor mice into lethally irradiated recipient mice and observed multi-lineage haematopoietic reconstitution when assayed at intervals of up to one year. Colony assays from bone marrow of primary recipients revealed that over 70% of clonogenic precursors were derived from donor hair follicle cells. When bone marrow from primary mice was harvested and used to repopulate secondary myeloablated recipients, multi-lineage haematopoietic engraftment was observed. Our data show that dermal but not epidermal compartments of the adult hair follicle have much broader stem cell activities than previously described. Although the treatment for many forms of blood disorder, such as leukemia, often requires transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells (HSC), their availability can be rate limiting. Given its easy accessibility, our identification of the hair follicle as a source of extramedullary haematopoietic stem cell activity makes it an attractive potential source for blood stem cell therapeutics and highlights its value as a model system in adult stem cell biology.

Animals↗