ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2104-4937
Current Organisation
The University of Newcastle
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Sociology | Sociology and Social Studies of Science and Technology
Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society | Syllabus and Curriculum Development | Allied Health Therapies (excl. Mental Health Services) |
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 10-09-2009
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.SOCSCIMED.2017.08.018
Abstract: Sociological studies of the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) occupations have documented the professionalisation strategies these groups use to establish boundaries between themselves and their competitors, including seeking educational accreditation and statutory regulation/licensure. Chiropractic has been particularly successful at professionalising and in Australia and the UK it is taught within public universities. Recent events have threatened chiropractic's university foothold, however, showing that professionalisation needs to be understood as an ongoing process of negotiation. Based on interviews with chiropractors in Australia and the UK, this paper examines the professionalisation strategies deployed by chiropractors within and outside of the university. Highly ergent strategies are identified across different sectors of the profession, relating to defining the chiropractic paradigm, directing education and constructing professional identity. In each domain, chiropractic academics tended to prioritise building the evidence base and becoming more aligned with medicine and other allied health professions. Although some practitioners supported this agenda, others strove to preserve chiropractic's vitalistic philosophy and professional distinction. Following Bourdieu, these intra-professional struggles are interpreted as occurring within a field in which chiropractors compete for different forms of capital, pulled by two opposing poles. The differing orientations and strategies pursued at the two poles of the field point to a number of possible futures for this CAM profession, including a potential split within the profession itself.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-01-2015
Abstract: In 2012, the group ‘Friends of Science in Medicine’, mostly comprising academic doctors and scientists, lobbied to remove teaching in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) from Australian universities. Seemingly inspired by an earlier UK-based c aign, the group approached vice-chancellors and the media, arguing that CAM degrees promoted ‘pseudo-science’ and ‘quackery’. Although epistemological disputes between biomedicine and CAM are well documented, their emergence in a higher education context is less familiar. This article explores the position-taking of those on each side of the debate, via a thematic analysis of stakeholders’ views as reported in news articles and other outlets. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and autonomy are used to sketch out the stakes of the struggle. It is argued that the debate is significant not only for what it reveals about the current status of CAM professions in Australia, but for what it suggests more broadly about legitimate knowledge in the university.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-02-2013
Abstract: The ethical issues neuroscience raises are subject to increasing attention, exemplified in the emergence of the discipline neuroethics. While the moral implications of neurotechnological developments are often discussed, less is known about how ethics intersects with everyday work in neuroscience and how scientists themselves perceive the ethics of their research. Drawing on observation and interviews with members of one UK group conducting neuroscience research at both the laboratory bench and in the clinic, this article examines what ethics meant to these researchers and delineates four specific types of ethics that shaped their day-to-day work: regulatory, professional, personal and tangible. While the first three categories are similar to those identified elsewhere in sociological work on scientific and clinical ethics, the notion of 'tangible ethics' emerged by attending to everyday practice, in which these scientists' discursive distinctions between right and wrong were sometimes challenged. The findings shed light on how ethical positions produce and are, in turn, produced by scientific practice. Informing sociological understandings of neuroscience, they also throw the category of neuroscience and its ethical specificity into question, given that members of this group did not experience their work as raising issues that were distinctly neuro-ethical.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.PEC.2018.03.010
Abstract: To identify communication patterns of Registered Nurses regarding patients' use of complementary therapies. A cross-sectional online survey conducted in 2017 recruited Australian Registered Nurses working in any area of nursing. Responses of 614 Registered Nurses were analysed. Patient-initiated discussion of complementary therapies were common for 77% of nurses nurse-initiated discussions were perceived by 73% (sometimes/almost always/always). Nurses' personal use of complementary therapies predicted discussion with patients and education-based, oncology, or aged care/rehabilitation nurses were most likely to initiate dialogue. Many (55%) did not 'recommend' a particular therapy, although 12% 'almost always/always' did so. Four out of five nurses (84%) documented patients' use and communicated with medical/nursing colleagues about this use. Conversely, 61% 'never' or 'almost never' communicated with a complementary therapy practitioner. Nurses working in Australia often discuss complementary therapies, however they rarely specifically recommend their use. Their workplace environment and clinical context influenced nurses' willingness to communicate about complementary therapy use. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS EVIDENCE: suggests the need for policy development to promote communication between mainstream healthcare providers and complementary therapy practitioners to support the delivery of safe, high quality patient care.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2019
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-06-2014
Abstract: This article attends to the processes through which neuroscience and the neuro are enacted in a specific context: a translational neuroscience research group that was the setting of an ethnographic study. The article therefore provides a close-up perspective on the intersection of neuroscience and translational research. In the scientific setting we studied, the neuro was multiple and irreducible to any particular entity or set of practices across a laboratory and clinical ide. Despite this multiplicity, the group’s work was held together through the ‘promise of porosity’ – that one day there would be translation of lab findings into clinically effective intervention. This promise was embodied in the figure of the Group Leader whose expertise spanned clinical and basic neurosciences. This is theorized in terms of a contrast between cohesion and adhesion in interdisciplinary groupings. We end by speculating on the role of ‘vivification’ – in our case mediated by the Group Leader – in rendering ‘alive’ the expectations of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Publisher: Hindawi Limited
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1155/2016/6960207
Abstract: High quality education programs are essential for preparing the next generation of Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners. Currently, training in CM occurs within differing health and education policy contexts. There has been little analysis of the factors influencing the form and status of CM education in different regions. Such a task is important for understanding how CM is evolving internationally and predicting future workforce characteristics. This paper compares the status of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong across a range of dimensions: historical and current positions in the national higher education system, regulatory context and relationship to the health system, and public and professional legitimacy. The analysis highlights the different ways in which CM education is developing in these settings, with Hong Kong providing somewhat greater access to clinical training opportunities for CM students. However, common trends and challenges shape CM education in both regions, including marginalisation from mainstream health professions, a small but established presence in universities, and an emphasis on biomedical research. Three factors stand out as significant for the evolution of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong and may have international implications: continuing biomedical dominance, increased competition between universities, and strengthened links with mainland China.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 26-10-2013
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-03-2011
DOI: 10.1111/J.1365-2923.2010.03881.X
Abstract: This study aimed to determine the impact of giving junior medical students control over the level of emotion expressed by a simulated patient (SP) in a teaching session designed to prepare students to handle emotions when interviewing real patients on placements. Year 1 medical students at Keele University School of Medicine were allowed to set the degree of emotion to be displayed by the SP in their first 'emotional interview'. This innovation was evaluated by mixed methods in two consecutive academic years as part of an action research project, along with other developments in a new communications skills curriculum. Questionnaires were completed after the first and second iterations by students, tutors and SPs. Sixteen students also participated in evaluative focus group discussions at the end of Year 1. Most students found the 'emotion-setting switch' helpful, both when interviewing the SP and when observing. Student-interviewers were helped by the perception that they had control over the difficulty of the task. Student-observers found it helpful to see the different levels of emotion and to think about how they might empathise with patients. By contrast, some students found the 'control switch' unnecessary or even unhelpful. These students felt that challenge was good for them and preferred not to be given the option of reducing it. The emotional level control was a useful innovation for most students and may potentially be used in any first encounter with challenging simulation. We suggest that it addresses innate needs for competence and autonomy. The insights gained enable us to suggest ways of building the element of choice into such sessions. The disadvantages of choice highlighted by some students should be surmountable by tutor 'scaffolding' of the learning for both student-interviewers and student-observers.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-12-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10459-012-9428-2
Abstract: This paper addresses the question 'what are the variables influencing social interactions and learning during Authentic Early Experience (AEE)?' AEE is a complex educational intervention for new medical students. Following critique of the existing literature, multiple qualitative methods were used to create a study framework conceptually orientated to a socio-cultural perspective. Study participants were recruited from three groups at one UK medical school: students, workplace supervisors, and medical school faculty. A series of intersecting spectra identified in the data describe dyadic variables that make explicit the parameters within which social interactions are conducted in this setting. Four of the spectra describe social processes related to being in workplaces and developing the ability to manage interactions during authentic early experiences. These are: (1) legitimacy expressed through invited participation or exclusion (2) finding a role-a spectrum from student identity to doctor mindset (3) personal perspectives and discomfort in transition from lay to medical and, (4) taking responsibility for 'risk'-moving from aversion to management through graded progression of responsibility. Four further spectra describe educational consequences of social interactions. These spectra identify how the reality of learning is shaped through social interactions and are (1) generic-specific objectives, (2) parallel-integrated-learning, (3) context specific-transferable learning and (4) performing or simulating-reality. Attention to these variables is important if educators are to maximise constructive learning from AEE. Application of each of the spectra could assist workplace supervisors to maximise the positive learning potential of specific workplaces.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-04-2018
DOI: 10.1111/JAN.13554
Abstract: To explore Registered Nurses' attitudes and behaviour towards patients' use of complementary therapies. Despite high rates of use of complementary therapies by the general population, little is known of how nurses respond to patients' use of these therapies. A two-phase sequential exploratory mixed methods design. Nineteen Registered Nurses working in Australia participated in a semi-structured interview in 2015-2016 and emerging themes informed the development of a quantitative survey instrument administered online nationwide in 2016. Emerging key themes "Promoting safe care" "Seeking complementary therapies knowledge" " Supporting holistic health care" and "Integrating complementary therapies in practice" were reflected in survey results. Survey responses (N = 614) revealed >90% agreement that complementary therapies align with a holistic view of health and that patients have the right to use them. Most nurses (77.5%) discussed complementary therapies with patients and 91.8% believed nurses should have some understanding of the area. One-third did not recommend complementary therapies and there was a lack of overall consensus as to whether these therapies should be integrated into nursing practice. Nurses with training in complementary therapies held more positive views than those without. Nurses were generally supportive of patients' interest in complementary therapies, although their primary concern was safety of the patient. Despite broad acceptance that nurses should have a basic understanding of complementary therapies, there was a lack of consensus about recommendation, integration into nursing practice and referral. Further research should explore how nurses can maintain safe, patient-centred care in the evolving pluralistic healthcare system.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.IJNURSTU.2017.01.008
Abstract: The use of complementary therapies is becoming increasingly prevalent. This has important implications for nurses in terms of patient care and safety. The aim of this meta-synthesis is to review critically, appraise and synthesize the existing qualitative research to develop a new, more substantial interpretation of nurses' attitudes regarding the, use of complementary therapies by patients. A search of relevant articles published in English between, January 2000 and December 2015 was conducted using the following, electronic databases MEDLINE, CINAHL and AMED. Reference lists of selected papers and grey literature were also interrogated for pertinent, studies. This review is reported according to the Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research (ENTREQ) guidelines. Data were extracted and analysed using a thematic synthesis process. Fifteen articles were included in this review. Five analytical themes emerged from the data relating to nurses' attitude towards complementary therapies: the strengths and weaknesses of conventional medicine Complementary therapies as a way to enhance nursing practice patient empowerment and patient-centeredness cultural barriers and enablers to integration and structural barriers and enablers to integration. Nurses' support for complementary therapies is not an attempt to challenge mainstream medicine but rather an endeavour to improve the quality of care available to patients. There are, however, a number of barriers to nurses' support including institutional culture and clinical context, as well as time and knowledge limitations. Some nurses promote complementary therapies as an opportunity to personalise care and practice in a humanistic way. Yet, nurses have very limited education in this field and a lack of professional frameworks to assist them. The nursing profession needs to consider how to address current deficiencies in meeting the growing use of complementary therapies by patients.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-12-2013
DOI: 10.1111/J.1365-2923.2012.04287.X
Abstract: Authentic early experience (AEE) describes experiences provided to new medical students to undertake 'human contact' to enhance learning. Although the concept of AEE is not new, and was commonplace prior to the Flexner Report of 1910, little is known about how or why meaning and knowledge are constructed through early student placements in medical, social and voluntary workplaces. Variance among settings means AEE is a collection of non-uniform, complex educational interventions which require students to make repeated transitions between different workplaces and their university institution. The purpose of this paper is to develop theory in this context. We report on a study undertaken in a UK medical school using interviews and discussion groups to generate data from students, workplace supervisors and school faculty staff. We used narrative analysis to access knowledge and meaning construction, in combination with analytic tools drawn from thematic and interpretative approaches to phenomena. We sought to refine theoretical understanding through the application of mētis, a socio-cultural theory novel to the field of medical education. Scott's concept of mētis provides a useful theoretical framework for understanding how AEE works for students in terms of their creation of meaning and how they choose to use it in relation to formally recognised knowledge. Knowledge and meaning, generated as a consequence of AEE, contained dichotomies and paradoxes. Students improvised, in the face of unpredictability and uncertainty, to create a form of mētis that allowed them to handle the perceived competing demands of AEE settings and the medical school. We demonstrate how meaning making can be conceived of as student mētis arising from social processes in students' learning interactions. We suggest that the development of collaborative working with students could potentiate positive forms of student mētis, thereby maximising desirable educational consequences. Further work is required to establish effective ways to do this.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-02-2017
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 15-07-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-05-2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-11-2014
Abstract: This paper presents findings from an empirical study that explored the meaning of ethics in the everyday work of neuroscientists. Observation and interviews were carried out in one neuroscience research group that was involved in bench-to-bedside translational research. We focus here specifically on the scientists’ perceptions of bioethics. Interviewees were often unfamiliar with bioethics as a discipline, particularly the more junior members of the group. Those who were aware of its existence largely viewed it as something distant from them, and as either too abstract, not relevant or an alien imposition on their work. Some interviewees themselves pointed to the need for better ‘bridge building’ between ethical principles and real-world ex les drawn from scientific practice, and we argue that this space is where a more empirically grounded ethics may be useful in terms of actually engaging scientists at both the bench and the bedside.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-10-2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-09-2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-05-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-03-2023
Abstract: Research on why people use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) shows clients value the CAM consultation, where they feel listened to and empowered to control their own health. Such ‘empowerment’ through CAM use is often theorised as reflecting wider neoliberal imperatives of self‐responsibility. CAM users' perspectives are well studied, but there has been little sociological analysis of interactions within the CAM consultation. Specifically, it is unclear how user empowerment/self‐knowledge relates to the CAM practitioner's power and expert knowledge. We address this using audio‐recorded consultations and interviews with CAM practitioners to explore knowledge use in client‐practitioner interactions and its meaning for practitioners. Based on our analysis and drawing on Foucault (1973), The Birth of the Clinic: an archaeology of medical perception and Antonovsky (1979), Health, Stress and Coping , we theorise the operation of power/knowledge in the CAM practitioner‐client dyad by introducing the concept of the ‘salutogenic gaze’. This gaze operates in the CAM consultation with disciplining and productive effects that are oriented towards health promotion. Practitioners listen to and value clients' stories, but their gaze also incorporates surveillance and normalisation, aided by technologies that may or may not be shared with clients. Because the salutogenic gaze is ultimately transferred from practitioner to client, it empowers CAM users while simultaneously reinforcing the practitioner's power as a health expert.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 17-07-2022
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-12-2013
DOI: 10.1111/MEDU.12093
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 18-04-2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-12-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-05-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-07-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-06-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1365-2923.2010.03680.X
Abstract: Most basic medical education studies focus on one medical school, and the social and educational significance of differences between schools remains poorly understood. Sociologists have called for more comparative studies and for research on the institutional context of medical education. This paper introduces Bourdieu's concept of 'field' as a tool for conducting such analyses. A 'field' is any arena in which there is a struggle over resources (capital), akin to a 'game' between players who occupy different positions depending on the resources they have. Prior studies show that higher education institutions compete in a field for various forms of capital which are reflected in their curricula and the students they attract. This paper argues that medical education can be conceptualised as a field within which medical schools compete for different forms of capital, such as students, funding and prestige. The structure of the UK medical education field is analysed as a specific ex le of how Bourdieu's framework can be applied. It is argued that UK medical schools' varying curricula and admissions criteria serve to distinguish them from their competitors and to facilitate access to different forms of capital. Competition within the field helps to maintain inter-school differences, with implications for both curriculum reform and students' beliefs and aspirations. Medical schools have varying curricula, reputations, and types and levels of resources. They compete with one another on all these fronts and attract different types of students and staff. Research and practice in basic medical education must take account of the position of any given medical school in relation to its competitors and to external agencies in order to critically consider the ethos of its curriculum and the perspectives of its students and staff. Bourdieu's concept of field offers one useful way of accomplishing this.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Start Date: 2014
End Date: 12-2017
Amount: $370,369.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
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