Erica Southgate

Disadvantage and the ‘capacity to aspire’ to medical school

This study was designed to elucidate why students from backgrounds of lower socio‐economic status (SES) and who may be first in their family (FIF) to enter university continue to be under‐represented in medical schools.

Mardi Gras Says ‘Be Drug Free’: Accounting for Resistance, Pleasure and the Demand for Illicit Drugs:

Focusing on the outcry which followed the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board’s anti-drug statement of late 1992, this article explores the overwhelmingly negative reaction against Mardi Gras’ position from both health agencies and members of the gay and lesbian community. Based on an analysis of ‘Letters to the editor’ in the Sydney gay press, counter discourses and subjugated knowledges used to contest Mardi Gras’ position are identified. The significance of these counter discourses in relation to major discourses evident within drug theorizing and research is examined. This article argues that cultural and subcultural constructions of pleasure, lifestyle and health need to be considered if the demand for illicit substances is to be adequately accounted for.

The injection of methadone syrup in New South Wales: patterns of use and increased harm after partial banning of injecting equipment

Objective: To describe methadone injectors and the risk practices associated with injecting methadone in New South Wales, Australia. To assess the impact on injecting drug use and risk behaviour of the withdrawal of methadone injecting equipment from government‐funded needle and syringe programs.

The Return-To-Work Coordinator Role: Qualitative Insights for Nursing

Introduction Few studies have examined the role of RTW Coordination from the perspective of RTW Coordinator’s. Furthermore there is little health specific literature on returning injured nurses to work despite the critical workforce shortages of these professionals. The study aimed to examine barriers and facilitators identified by the RTW Coordinator to returning injured nurses to work and influences on specific health sector or geographic location. The study sought to gain insights into the professional backgrounds and everyday work practices of RTW Coordinators. Method Five focus groups were conducted in metropolitan and rural areas of NSW, Australia. Twenty-five RTW Coordinators from 14 different organisations participated in the study. The focus groups included participants representing different health sectors (aged, disability, public and private hospital and community health). Results The data analysis identified information pertaining to the qualifications and backgrounds of RTW Coordinators; the role of RTW Coordinators’ within organisational structures; a range of technical knowledge and personal qualities for RTW Coordination and important elements of the case management style used to facilitate RTW. Conclusions The findings identified a wide range of professional backgrounds that RTW Coordinators bring to the role and the impact of organisational structures on the ability to effectively undertake RTW responsibilities. The study found that interpersonal skills of RTW Coordinators may be more important to facilitate RTW than a healthcare background. A collaborative case management style was also highlighted and the difficulties associated with juggling conflicts of interest, multiple organisational roles and the emotional impact of the work.

Experiences of medical students who are first in family to attend university

Students from backgrounds of low socio‐economic status (SES) or who are first in family to attend university (FiF) are under‐represented in medicine. Research has focused on these students’ pre‐admission perceptions of medicine, rather than on their lived experience as medical students. Such research is necessary to monitor and understand the potential perpetuation of disadvantage within medical schools.

Travels in extreme social mobility: how first-in-family students find their way into and through medical education

ABSTRACT Higher education is understood as essential to enabling social mobility. Research and policy have centred on access to university, but recently attention has turned to the journey of social mobility itself – and its costs. Long-distance or ‘extreme’ social mobility journeys particularly require analysis. This paper examines journeys of first-in-family university students in the especially high-status degree of medicine, through interviews with 21 students at an Australian medical school. Three themes are discussed: (1) the roots of participants’ social mobility journeys; (2) how sociocultural difference is experienced and negotiated within medical school; and (3) how participants think about their professional identities and futures. Students described getting to medical school ‘the hard way’, and emphasised the different backgrounds and attitudes of themselves and their wealthier peers. Many felt like ‘imposters’, using self-deprecating language to highlight their lack of ‘fit’ in the privileged world of medicine. However, such language also reflected resistance to middle-class norms and served to create solidarity with community of origin, and, importantly, patients. Rather than narratives of loss, students’ stories reflect a tactical refinement of self and incorporation of certain middle-class attributes, alongside an appreciation of the worth their ‘difference’ brings to their new destination, the medical profession.

Researchers as dirty workers: cautionary tales on insider-outsider dynamics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relatively hidden phenomenon of researchers who not only study dirty work but who also occupy the position of dirty workers. Drawing on the sociological debate on insider-outsider categories in research, this paper describes how these types of “dirty work/er researchers” understand and negotiate their occupational subjectivity and the methodological and epistemological resources they bring to their research practice. Design/methodology/approach – Two biographical narratives from different types of “dirty work/er researchers” are analysed using a feminist epistemology of corporeality, social difference and power. Findings – Ambivalence is an underlying dynamic of the narratives which indicate that the stigma attached to certain types of dirty work histories act to both facilitate and constrain research practice. Ambivalence disrupts strict binary categories often relied on in research such as insiders and outsiders, empowered and powerless and researche...

Just Add Hours? An Assessment of Pre-Service Teachers' Perception of the Value of Professional Experience in Attaining Teacher Competencies.

ABSTRACT This study compared pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional competencies at two campuses of a large regional teacher education university, where one campus provided students 22% more hours of professional placement in schools and related educational settings. Students who had experienced more hours in schools and such settings were more positive about their, ability to apply their knowledge of students and how they learn, classroom management, professional knowledge and practice, and community engagement; however, when students felt well supported during professional experience, such differences diminished. Additional hours were not associated with pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their ability to apply subject content and teaching; plan, assess and report; and effective student communication. Researchers argued that this pointed to the crucial role of good classroom mentors in teacher professional experience but also the value of students’ tertiary teacher education in preparing them for classroom teaching.

Australian physiotherapists’ priorities for the development of clinical prediction rules for low back pain: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVE To identify the types of clinical prediction rules (CPRs) for low back pain (LBP) that Australian physiotherapists wish to see developed and the characteristics of LBP CPRs that physiotherapists believe are important. DESIGN Qualitative study using semi-structured focus groups. SETTING Metropolitan and regional areas of New South Wales, Australia. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-six physiotherapists who manage patients with LBP (77% male, 81% private practice). RESULTS Participants welcomed the development of prognostic forms of LBP CPRs. Tools that assist in identifying serious spinal pathology, likely responders to interventions, patients who are likely to experience an adverse outcome, and patients not requiring physiotherapy management were also considered useful. Participants thought that LBP CPRs should be uncomplicated, easy to remember, easy to apply, accurate and precise, and well-supported by research evidence. They should not contain an excessive number of variables, use complicated statistics, or contain variables that have no clear logical relationship to the dependent outcome. It was considered by participants that LBP CPRs need to be compatible with traditional clinical reasoning and decision-making processes, and sufficiently inclusive of a broad range of management approaches and common clinical assessment techniques. CONCLUSION There were several identified areas of perceived need for LBP CPR development and a range of characteristics such tools need to encompass to be considered clinically meaningful and useful by physiotherapists in this study. Targeting and incorporating the needs and preferences of physiotherapists is likely to result in the development of tools for LBP with the greatest potential to positively impact clinical practice.

Decidedly visceral moments: emotion, embodiment and the social bond in ethnographic fieldwork

This paper is a reflexive analysis of emotion, embodiment and the social bond in ethnographic fieldwork conducted as part of a study of risk practices amongst sex workers in Australia between 2002–2005. Organised around Scheffs concept of primary emotions – love, grief, joy and shame – the paper draws on field notes from the study to develop a hidden ethnography of the emotional border crossing that can occur during ethnographic research and how this impacts upon the researchers subjectivity and subsequent interpretation of the fieldwork experience. The paper contests the prevailing positivism of public health research which privileges realist accounts of research and the idea that fieldwork occurs in a linear manner.