Why Bioethics Should Be Concerned With Medically Unexplained Symptoms

Biomedical diagnostic science is a great deal less successful than we've been willing to acknowledge in bioethics, and this fact has far-reaching ethical implications. In this article I consider the surprising prevalence of medically unexplained symptoms, and the term's ambiguous meaning. Then I frame central questions that remain answered in this context with respect to informed consent, autonomy, and truth-telling. Finally, I show that while considerable attention in this area is given to making sure not to provide biological care to patients without a need, comparatively little is given to the competing, ethically central task of making sure never to obstruct access to biological care for those with diagnostically confusing biological conditions. I suggest this problem arises from confusion about the philosophical value of vagueness when it comes to the line between biological and psychosocial needs.     

工作对家庭的增益与中小学教师的工作满意度:职业认同的中介作用及其性别差异

探究工作对家庭的增益影响中小学教师工作满意度的过程机制。采用纵向设计对760名中小学教师进行问卷调查,时间点1测查人口学变量和工作对家庭的增益,时间点2测查职业认同和工作满意度。结果发现:(1)工作对家庭的增益能够显著正向预测工作满意度;(2)职业认同在工作对家庭的增益与工作满意度的关系中起部分中介作用;(3)性别对此中介过程的前半段路径具有调节作用,表现为男教师的工作对家庭的增益对职业认同的预测效力更高。结果表明:工作对家庭的增益显著影响中小学教师的工作满意度,职业认同在此影响过程中具有中介作用,且这一中介作用存在性别差异。     

The notion of professional identity among practitioners working with asylum seekers. A discursive analysis of practitioners’ experience of clinical supervision and working context in work with asylum seekers

The present study analyses interviews that were conducted with eight professionals who have provided therapeutic work to asylum seekers. It explores practitioners’ perspective on the impact of clinical supervision on their work as well as the impact of their working organisational context on the way they experience their professional identity. The findings of the study suggest that the experience of working with this population produces a notion of professional identity that offers a more politicised engagement with clinical work. This politicised notion of professional identity is reflected in the practitioners’ perspective on the use of clinical supervision as well as in the manner in which they position themselves within their organisational context.     

Reflective writing: I wouldn’t start from here – examining a professional development initiative to enhance the scholarly activity of English HE in FE lecturers

This paper explores the nature of reflective writing through the experience of the researchers in running a series of writing workshops with a group of higher education practitioners working in a UK further education college. The focus here is on reflective writing, which was chosen to start the sequence of workshops, as it was perceived as a form of writing with which the participants would be familiar, given its role in the education and development of teachers within the sector. Our assumption was that this familiarity would facilitate the writing process and participants would readily respond by engaging in reflective writing. However, in practice this proved not to be the case, despite being introduced to a variety of different forms of writing over a series of workshops, it took the participants longer than we expected to begin to write. This led us to question our assumptions about the starting point for the writing workshops and what they might achieve. The paper draws on field notes made during the writing initiative and data gathered through focus groups and interviews with the participants, as well as extracts of their writing to examine their experiences. Different conceptualisations of reflective writing are identified and their implications are explored in relation to the participants’ engagement with writing and their experience of professional development.     

Peer review of teaching (PRoT) in higher education – a practitioner’s reflection

Peer review of teaching (PRoT) is recommended to both develop and assure the quality of teaching practices in Higher Education. An institutional implementation of a peer review process can be viewed as a genuine desire to improve teaching quality or as an instrument of accountability and performativity. There are many approaches to the peer review of teaching operating. This article documents the impact, advantages and disadvantages of direct participation in three peer review of teaching processes.     

Healing Without Waging War: Beyond Military Metaphors in Medicine and HIV Cure Research

Military metaphors are pervasive in biomedicine, including HIV research. Rooted in the mind set that regards pathogens as enemies to be defeated, terms such as “shock and kill” have become widely accepted idioms within HIV cure research. Such language and symbolism must be critically examined as they may be especially problematic when used to express scientific ideas within emerging health-related fields. In this article, philosophical analysis and an interdisciplinary literature review utilizing key texts from sociology, anthropology, history, and Chinese and African studies were conducted to investigate the current proliferation of military metaphors. We found the use of these metaphors to be ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary. To overcome military metaphors we propose to (1) give them less aggressive meanings, and/or (2) replace them with more peaceful metaphors. Building on previous authors' work, we argue for the increased use of “journey” (and related) metaphors as meaningful, cross-culturally appropriate alternatives to military metaphors.     

Humans as professional interactants with elephants in a global commons

All current versions of ethics for human interaction with animals are based on theories originally developed for relationships between humans or for human understanding of the environment. The perceived analogies between relationships among humans those theories were designed for and the relationships between human and animals have led to specifically revised and adapted theories for ethical interaction between humans and animals. In this essay I propose two further analogies that I develop into one core argument to cover specific issues in human–animal relationships not yet adequately addressed. First I adapt the ethical theory designed for use between human professionals and their clients for analogous use in the power relationship between humans and animals; second I similarly adapt the ethical theory designed for interactions between humans and the global environment. I use elephants as example of an animal species and they stand as proxy for all similar animal species. The overall argument justifies moral duties for humanity to protect both species and the global biosphere as home for all living organisms.     

大学生的专业承诺、学习倦怠的关系与量表编制

通过对大学学习情境中的承诺和倦怠的研究,编制了适用于大学生学习心理研究的大学生专业承诺量表和大学生学习倦怠量表。对量表统计分析后表明：专业承诺包括情感承诺、继续承诺、规范承诺和理想承诺四个维度;学习倦怠包括情绪低落、行为不当和成就感低三个维度,量表具有良好的信度和效度。回归分析证明,情感承诺是大学生学习倦怠的重要预测变量。     

情绪对职业价值观的影响——意义建构的中介作用

为了考察情绪对于职业价值观的影响,本研究采用情绪量表、意义建构量表、职业价值观量表以及社交媒体依赖程度量表等,对938名员工数据进行检验,结果表明:(1)情绪对于职业价值观具有显著的正向影响;(2)意义建构在情绪与职业价值观之间起完全中介作用;(3)社交媒体依赖程度负向调节了情感与意义建构之间的关系。情绪通过意义建构的中介作用对职业价值观产生影响,并且社交依赖在路径的前半段起调节作用。探究情绪与职业价值观关系,对于科学树立合理的职业价值观具有重要意义。     

寻求专业性心理帮助的预测因素研究的综述

在日常生活中,一些人在产生了自己难以解决的心理问题时,不寻求专业性心理帮助,以致使心理问题变得更加严重,这一问题已经引起了国内外不少学者的关注。他们运用各种问卷和访谈的方式,从分析求助者个人心理特点入手,并通过跨文化研究,揭示了人格特质和社会文化对心理求助的预测作用以及与心理咨询工作者有关的因素。该文概述并讨论了国内外关于此课题的研究成果,以期为我国的心理健康教育提供有价值的资料。