Mapping Health Professions Education: Using Complexity Science to Make Sense of Learning Through Electronic Consultations.

Phenomena studied within health professions education are often complex and multifaceted. This article describes a complexity science-informed theoretical framework that was developed for exploring how electronic consultations support learning among primary care providers, as well as within the larger organizations or systems in which they practice. This framework enables researchers to investigate learning occurring simultaneously at multiple levels (including individuals and social groups), without simplistically conflating levels or theories.

The perceived contributions of non-physician team members to residents' interprofessional education during a critical care rotation.

Unlabelled: During rotations, post-graduate medical residents must learn about interprofessional teamwork and collaboration. Our study examined the role of non-physician healthcare team members in such education, from the perspectives of both residents and team members themselves.

Methods: This qualitative study took place in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a teaching hospital in a Canadian city.

Socio-material perspectives on interprofessional team and collaborative learning.

Context: Interprofessional teamwork and collaboration have become important parts of health care practice and education. Most of the literature on interprofessional learning, however, assumes that learning is something acquired by individuals and readily transferred to other contexts. This assumption severely limits the ways in which interprofessional educators and researchers can conceptualise and support learning related to collaborative interprofessional health care.

The development of vaccination perspectives among chiropractic, naturopathic and medical students: a case study of professional enculturation.

An important influence on parents' decisions about pediatric vaccination (children under 6 years of age) is the attitude of their health care providers, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers. Very limited qualitative research exists, however, on how attitudes towards vaccination develop among healthcare professionals in-training. We explored perspective development among three groups of students: medical, chiropractic, and naturopathic.

Complexity, collective learning and the education of interprofessional health teams: insights from a university-level course.

This paper describes a collaborative action research project carried out by the author and the instructors of a large university-level interprofessional health team course. The research focused on introducing new complexity science-based ideas about collective learning to the course's pedagogy and curriculum, and tracking resultant changes in both thinking and practice. A number of insights emerged from the research, including a deeper understanding of collective learning in interprofessional contexts, a questioning of the meaning of consensus within teams, and the identification of a special role for trust in interprofessional relationships.

Circulating leptin and cortisol after burn injury: loss of diurnal pattern.

Leptin, a hormone involved in appetite and metabolic energy expenditure, could have a role in the reduced appetite and/or energy expenditure after burn injury. In this study, the diurnal pattern of circulating leptin concentrations was compared with body mass index (BMI), sex, glucose, insulin, and the diurnal cortisol rhythm in burn patients. Plasma samples were collected at 12:00 pm and 02:00 am from severely burned adults and children.

Differential regulation of c-jun expression in liver and lung of mice after thermal injury.

In addition to skin injury, burns may also damage distant organs. Understanding the mechanisms of distant organ injury will substantially improve the survival of burn patients. Transcription factors are the major regulators of gene expression in response to most types of injury.

Increased use of prophylactic vena cava filters in trauma patients failed to decrease overall incidence of pulmonary embolism.

Background: Recent studies have reported that placement of vena cava filters (VCFs) early after injury may decrease the incidence of pulmonary embolism (PE) in high-risk trauma patients.

Study Design: This was a retrospective review of all trauma patients with placement of VCFs admitted to a single level-1 trauma center between 1989 and 1997. Two cohorts corresponding to years of high or low prophylactic VCF use (PVCF) were compared.

Expression of HSP70 in healing wounds of diabetic and nondiabetic mice.

Background: Heat shock proteins (HSPs) stabilize intracellular processes of cells under stress. Little is known about the role of HSPs in wound healing, or whether their expression is altered by systemic disease. The focus of this study was to examine the local heat shock response to wounding in diabetic mice.