Neurophobia among general practice trainees: The evidence, perceived causes and solutions

Introduction

As general practice (GP) is the main source of referrals to neurologists, neurology education for GP trainees is important. We investigated the existence of neurophobia, contributing factors and potential prevention strategies among GP trainees.

In a questionnaire survey interest, knowledge, confidence and perceived difficulty in neurology were compared with different medical specialties. Reasons for difficulty with neurology, postgraduate neurology education experience, learning methods and suggested teaching improvements were examined.

Of 205 GP trainees, 118 (58%) completed the questionnaire. Threshold analyses justified categorical intervals for the Likert responses. Trainees recorded poorer knowledge (p < 0.001), less confidence (p < 0.001) and more perceived difficulty (p < 0.001) with neurology than with any other medical specialty. GP trainees had less interest in neurology than any other medical specialty (Duncan test, p < 0.001). There was a similar gradation in difficulty and confidence perception across medical specialties. Hospital and community-based neurology teaching was graded as “poor” or “very poor” by over 60% of GP trainees. There were multiple perceived causes of neurophobia, including neuroanatomy and poor quality teaching. More organised clinical teaching and referral guidance were suggested to address GP neurophobia.

Neurophobia is common among GP trainees in Northern Ireland. GP trainees have clear and largely uniform ideas on improving their neurology education. GP training posts should reflect the importance of neurology within the GP curriculum.

Neoliberalism, the University, Public Goods, and Agricultural Innovation

After World War II, most industrialising nations adopted some form of welfare-state approach to balance the economic activities of self-interested agents and social welfare. In the realm of scientific research and innovation, this often meant that governments took primary responsibility for funding public research organisations, including research universities and government laboratories. Over the past four decades, however, the significance of private funding for agricultural research has increased, and academic scientists now often work in public-private partnerships. We argue that this trend needs to be carefully monitored because public goods are likely to be overlooked and undervalued in such arrangements. In the interest of developing indicators to monitor the trend, we document public and private funding for agricultural research and agricultural innovation in four countries: the USA, the UK, Ireland and Germany. Our results show that although neoliberalism is evident in each country, it is not homogeneous in its application and impacts, suggesting that national and institutional contexts matter. This article is directed at stimulating debates on the relationships between university research, agricultural innovation and public goods.

Personal and Public Involvement and its impact - Monitoring, measuring and evaluating the impact of Personal and Public Involvement (PPI) in Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.

Introduction
This report details the findings from research conducted across Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Trusts during 2015 which examines the current state of Personal and Public Involvement (PPI). This is about how service users, carers and patients engage with staff, management and directors of statutory health and social care organisations. Most statutory health and social care organisations must, under legislation, meet the requirements of PPI. PPI has been part of health and social care policy in Northern Ireland since 2007 and became law two years later with the introduction of the Health and Social Care Reform Act (2009). It is, therefore, timely that PPI is now assessed in this systematic way in order to both examine the aspects which are working well and to highlight those areas where improvements need to be made. As far as possible, this Summary Report is written in an accessible way, avoiding jargon and explaining key research terms, so as to ensure it is widely understood. This is in keeping with established good practice in service user involvement research. This summary, therefore, gives a picture of PPI in Northern Ireland currently. There is also a fuller report which gives a lot more details about the research and findings. Information on this is available from the Public Health Agency and/or the Patient and Client Council.

Capitalising on the conceptual divide: access to public and private justice in children's proceedings

This article argues that the concept of a public/private divide is inappropriate in the context of children's proceedings in Northern Ireland. It highlights the problem by examining policy proposals in respect of legal aid/services, which have been structured and validated by the concept. A spectral model for understanding children's proceedings is proffered by way of a proposed replacement.

The Social Politics of Breastfeeding: Norms, Situations and Policy Implications

This paper aims to explore the assumptions concerning the dynamics of human action underpinning breastfeeding promotion campaigns in the UK. Drawing on qualitative interviews with mothers, the ways in which three problematic assumptions shape both the promotion and experience of contemporary breastfeeding promotion campaigns are explored, in the light of Joas’s theorisation of action’s creativity and pragmatism. Public health efforts to establish breastfeeding as a rational standard against which good mothering can be judged, in ways which rely on a de-contextualised understanding of human action as instrumentally rational, where bodies are imagined as pliable instruments of human intentions, are explored as they play out in the experiences of women embarking on motherhood. The paper concludes that a target-driven health-promotion policy, relying on a mechanistic account of social and emotional life, is contributing to the burden of early motherhood in ways that are not conducive to infant and maternal health and attachment.

Consequences of infant maltreatment on child wellbeing

Child maltreatment is a major public health and social welfare problem. Evidence consistently shows that infants under one are more at risk of fatal injury, physical abuse and neglect than any other age group, mainly because they are almost completely dependent on others for their overall wellbeing and development. This article discusses the impact of infant maltreatment on children's health and wellbeing. It highlights the sizeable body of literature on the relationship between types of infant maltreatment and a variety of negative developmental, health and mental health consequences

Sports Law

The term sports law is fourfold in nature and encompasses: (a) traditional areas of law, such as contract, tort, criminal, administrative and EU law, as applied to disputes of a sporting origin; (b) the particular impact that a range of statutory provisions might have on sport; for example, legislation governing discriminatory and unsafe practices in a workplace or monopolistic or fraudulent behaviour in an industry; (c) issues of public and social policy otherwise influencing the legislature and the courts, from the allocation of resources to the allocation of risk; and (d) lex sportiva, where that term is taken to reflect the various internal administrative regulations and awards by dispute-resolving mechanisms in sport. As a matter of practice, sports law tends to be concerned with the application of contract and commercial law principles to professional sport - and namely the application of such branches of law to disputes relating to the following "three pillars" of modern, professional sport i.e., disputes relating to the payment, sponsorship or endorsement of those who play sport for a living; disputes arising from decisions made by sports governing bodies; and disputes arising from the application of law to the holding of sports events.