The patrol officers and Tom Kabu: power and prestige in the Purari Delta

In 1946, Tom Kabu returned to the Gulf of Papua determined to reinvent the communities of the Purari Delta. A man of quiet determination, in the first few years he and his followers resisted the assistance of the Australian Administration in Palma and New Guinea. Kabu's popularity in the villages of the Purari, coupled with his independent stance, caused resentment within the local expatriate community. The field staff working for the Department of District Services and Native Affairs especially felt threatened by Kabu's influence and sought to regain government control by opposing his ventures. Through the study of patrol reports written by these officers, this paper seeks to examine the reasons for this resentment and the methods employed by the officers to crush Kabu's company.

Patients' perceptions and experiences of transitions in diabetes care: a longitudinal qualitative study

Objective To examine patients' perceptions and experiences over time of the devolvement of diabetes care/reviews from secondary to primary health-care settings. Design Repeat in-depth interviews with 20 patients over 4 years. Participants and setting Twenty type 2 diabetes patients recruited from primary- and secondary-care settings across Lothian, Scotland. Results Patients' views about their current diabetes care were informed by their previous service contact. The devolvement of diabetes care/reviews to general practice was presented as a 'mixed blessing'. Patients gained reassurance from their perception that receiving practice-based care/reviews signified that their diabetes was well-controlled. However, they also expressed resentment that, by achieving good control, they received what they saw as inferior care and/or less-frequent reviews to others with poorer control. While patients tended to regard GPs as having adequate expertise to conduct their practice-based reviews, they were more ambivalent about nurses taking on this role. Opportunities to receive holistic care in general practice were not always realized due to patients seeing health-care professionals for diabetes management to whom they would not normally present for other health issues. Conclusions It is important to educate patients about their care pathways, and to reassure them that frequency of reviews depends more on clinical need than location of care and that similar care guidelines are followed in hospital clinics and general practice. A patients' history of service contact may need to be taken into account in future studies of service satisfaction.

A patient's perspective:the impact of adverse drug reactions on patients and their views on reporting

What is known and objective: Adverse drug reactions to prescribed medication are relatively common events. However, the impact such reactions have on patients and their attitude to reporting such events have only been poorly explored. Previous studies relying on self-reporting patients indicate that altruism is an important factor. In the United Kingdom, patient reporting started in 2005; though, numbers of serious reports remain low. Method: A purposive sample of fifteen patients who had been admitted to an inner city hospital with an adverse drug reaction were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Patients were asked to relate in their own words their experience of an adverse drug reaction. Patient's reactions to the information leaflet, adherence to treatment and use of other sources of information on medication were assessed. Interviews were recorded, and a thematic analysis of patients'responses was performed. Results and discussion: Analysis of the patient interviews demonstrated the reality of being admitted to hospital is often a frightening process with a significant emotional cost. Anger, isolation, resentment and blame were common factors, particularly when medicines had been prescribed for acute conditions. For patients with chronic conditions, a more phlegmatic approach was seen especially with conditions with a strong support networks. Patients felt that communication and information should have been more readily available from the health care professional who prescribed the medication, although few had read the patient information leaflet. Only a minority of patients linked the medication they had taken to the adverse event, although some had received false reassurance that the drug was not related to their illness creating additional barriers. In contrast to previous studies, many patients felt that adverse drug reporting was not their concern, particularly as they obtained little direct benefit from it. The majority of patients were unaware of the Yellow Card Scheme in the UK for patient reporting. Even when explained, the scheme was felt too cold and impersonal and not a patient's 'job'. What is new and conclusion: Patients having a severe adverse drug reaction following an acute illness felt negative emotions towards their health care provider. Those with a chronic condition rationalized the event and coped better with its impact. Neither group felt that reporting the adverse reaction was their responsibility. Encouraging patients to report remains important but expecting patients to report solely for altruistic purposes may be unrealistic. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Domestic Politics in the Dominican Republic after the Earthquake in Haiti

Despite historical tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Dominicans appear to have put aside their resentment in favor of supporting Haitians after the earthquake that devastated the neighbor nation in January 2010. Over the past several months, there has been unprecedented cooperation between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, with little evidence of a negative impact on domestic politics in the Dominican Republic. In fact, the high ratings of President Leonel Fernández and the results of the May Parliamentary elections may suggest that how the Fernández administration handled the Haitian crisis did not have a negative impact on citizens’ perception. However, the issue of Haitian immigration remains very sensitive in the Dominican Republic, and has the potential to become the major concern on the domestic political front. As of June 2010, the Haitian crisis seemed to have little or no impact on Dominican politics, as the following points indicate: The May 16, 2010 Parliamentary elections increased President Fernández political party to 31 out of 32 Senate seats, and 105 out of 183 Chamber of Deputies seats; this is a total increase of 18 seats from the previous term. Polls indicate that President Fernández has a 54 percent approval rating. Polls also indicate that Haiti is not among the most pressing issues of concern to Dominican citizens. Instead, 65 percent of the population identifies drug trafficking and corruption as the greatest concerns. The immigration debate will remain the major consideration in domestic politics in the Dominican Republic; 62.4 percent of Dominicans polled think that the military should be strengthened along the DR-Haitian border.

England's Yellow Peril: Sinophobia and the Great War

As England suffered heavy casualties at the front during World War One, the nation closed ranks against outsiders at home. England sought to reaffirm its racial dominance at the heart of the empire, and the Chinese in London became the principal scapegoat for anti-foreign sentiment. A combination of propaganda and popular culture, from the daily paper to the latest theatre sensation, fanned the flames of national resentment into a raging Sinophobia. Opium smoking, gambling and interracial romance became synonymous with London's Limehouse Chinatown, which was exoticised by Sax Rohmer's evil mastermind Fu Manchu and Thomas Burke's tales of lowlife love. England's Yellow Peril exploded in the midst of a catastrophic war and defined the representation of Chinese abroad in the decades to come.

Hegel’s Non-Metaphysical Idea of Freedom

the article explores the putatively non-metaphysical – non-voluntarist, and even non-causal – concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a practical point of view’.

Interpretación Modesta de la Responsabilidad Moral: Lectura de Strawson desde el sentido histórico y situado de la humanidad

En esta monografía reseño la forma como Peter Strawson enmarca el debate de la responsabilidad moral en un lugar que denomino más cerca de lo humano. Considero que son las actitudes reactivas, propuestas por Peter Strawson, una pieza fundamental para entender qué es la responsabilidad moral. Esta perspectiva no está libre de contradictores, es por ese motivo que plantearé una interpretación de la idea de Strawson que tiene como objetivo responder algunas críticas que recaen sobre esta forma de conceptualizar las relaciones interpersonales. Construiré la defensa alrededor de la interpretación de la responsabilidad moral que entiende la asignación de la responsabilidad moral como un tipo de lenguaje que adquiere su significado en la medida que se usa. De manera análoga, planteo el interrogante de si es posible pensar en un sistema de responsabilidad moral que se justifica en la medida que se usa. Considero que esta idea tiene sentido con algo denominado la circularidad virtuosa. La pregunta que sale a la luz de inmediato es ¿cómo es posible usar un sistema de responsabilidad moral que se va justificando en la medida que se usa? En realidad, no solo es en la medida que se usa, sino también en el trascurso en el que los seres humanos se reconocen unos con otros y entablan ciertas prácticas. Para entender y justificar esta cuestión planteo una interpretación de la postura de Strawson que denomino “Interpretación Modesta de la Responsabilidad Moral”.