Browsing by Subject "Health Sciences"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Open Access
    Diversity intervention for health educators : a detailed description of diversity workshops with health educators at UCT
    (2011-12) Ismail, Salma; Steyn, Melissa
    This report is of value to scholars of organisational transformation in post-apartheid South African organisations. Also, diversity practitioners who work in the context of higher education will find this report to be of interest. The diversity workshops were held with academic staff who supervise fourth year medical students' research and health promotion projects in the Public and Primary Health Care Department at the University of Cape Town. These include staff who are site facilitators, lecturers and registrars in the Health Science Faculty. Many of them, except for the site facilitators, who mainly supervise the health promotion projects, have had no training in teaching methodology or educational theory. Therefore, the emphasis of the training was on the supervision of the research (Epidemiology) projects. The supervisors were facing complex challenges in establishing new ways of teaching to support the changing learning environment - small group learning in institutional and community settings, and the increasing diversity of the student body. To enable staff to respond to these challenges an Adult Educator from the Centre of Higher Education and Development was asked to run workshops with staff in which diversity is made an explicit presence in the learning process. This report documents the process of the workshop implementation.
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    How can the process of professional identity formation of a gender-affirming practitioner inform medical curriculum change?
    (2024) De Vries, Elsje; Kathard, H
    Background Transgender and gender diverse people experience significant health disparities. Health professionals are generally not adequately prepared by current curricula to provide gender-affirming, holistic care that is respectful of patients' gender identity. Therefore, this study asks the question: How can the professional identity formation of a gender-affirming practitioner inform medical curriculum change? Methodology The objectives of the study were to: a. Analyse the process of professional identity formation of gender-affirming health care practitioners and students, using narrative interviews. b. Illuminate how medical curriculum change can enable gender-affirming professional identity formation. A critical research paradigm using the conceptual lens of professional identity formation was adopted. Case study design and narrative inquiry were the complementary methodological frameworks used. The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase One, six health care practitioners and nine medical students described their shared their experiences of becoming gender-affirming practitioners through narrative interviews. A narrative analysis was conducted and represented as stories. In phase two these stories were shared with medical educators in a group engagement to facilitate their reflections on gender-affirming curriculum change. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse this discussion. Regulatory policy and university curriculum documents were analysed. Other data sources were participant reflective journals from phase one and the researcher's reflective journal. Findings from each phase were combined for the case study analysis using a critical lens. Findings The process of professional identity formation is described as a journey of becoming over time rather than a destination. Being gender-affirming entails providing holistic care, confronting pathologising perspectives, seeing the human first, and shifting power to enable patient participation. The present learning environment at medical schools is not conducive to the development of a gender-affirming practitioner, given the gap between the intended and experienced curriculum. Conclusion A gender-affirming approach offers a new perspective of how power dynamics may shift to create a more enabling environment for the development of a genderaffirming professional identity. Curriculum change can facilitate this approach by integrating gender-affirming healthcare into the medical curriculum with a focus on attitudes, cultural humility and incorporating the voices of transgender and gender diverse people
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    Men's use of violence against intimate partners : a study of working men in Cape Town
    (2002) Abrahams, Naeemah
    Violence against women is a universal problem and is widely recognised as a fundamental barrier to women's health and gender equality. Working with men to change their behaviour is increasingly acknowledged as a critical part of the solution to the problem. Data on risk factors that explain men's use of violence have been limited. Such data is required before interventions can be developed. The aims of this study was to describe the prevalence of different types of violence men use against their partners, as well as the risk factors for men's use of such violence. The study was based among men working at three municipalities in Cape Town. A random sample of 1800 names was chosen, from among which 1414 interviews were held. Prevalence estimates and risk factor analyses for use of violence against an intimate partner were done.
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    Scoping review of health system software literature: How has the concept been used?
    (2023) Burger, Nicola; Gilson, Lucy
    Understanding health systems as comprising interacting elements of hardware and software acknowledges health systems as dynamic, complex adaptive systems (CAS). The hardware represents the concrete components of systems, whereas the software represents the elements which influence actions and underpin relationships, such as processes, values and norms. As a specific call for research on health system software was made in 2011, we conducted a qualitative scoping review considering how and for what purpose the concept has been used since that time. As it has remained relatively under-researched, our overall purpose was both to synthesise current knowledge and to generate lessons about how to deepen research on, and understanding of, health system software. The review consisted of two phases: first, all papers which have explicitly used the concept of health system software were mapped; second, we explored how this concept was purposively used within research. The databases Pubmed, Scopus, EBSCOhost, Web of Science and Google Scholar were systematically searched using a strategy developed by a skilled librarian. In Phase 1, data were extracted from 98 papers to understand the scope of this literature. Our analysis revealed that a third of the papers used the software concept rather superficially; a third used it to conceptualise the importance of some software elements; and a third used it in relation to another aspect of health system experience, such as preparedness or resilience. In Phase 2, our analysis confirmed the value of pro-actively using the software concept within studies, demonstrating two patterns of use. However, limited understanding of how to investigate interactions amongst hard and software elements was also revealed. Future health policy and systems research should purposively investigate hardware-software interactions, in order to gain greater understanding of the complex, adaptive nature of health systems.
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    Topics in general surgery: a video series by Dr Juan Klopper
    (2013) Klopper, Juan
    This resource is a collection of Surgery videos created by Dr Juan Klopper. It contains presentations on topics in General Surgery created by Dr Klopper, Registrars and Medical Officers. This is a study resource that aims to assist candidates sitting the South African College of Medicine exam for Surgery. It contains teaching videos and journal articles which cover important and relevant topics for the examinations.