Communication,collaboration and contagion: “Virtualisation” of anatomy during COVID‐19

COVID‐19 has generated a global need for technologies that enable communication, collaboration, education and scientific discourse whilst maintaining physical distance. University closures due to COVID‐19 and physical distancing measures disrupt academic activities that previously occurred face‐to‐face. Restrictions placed on universities due to COVID‐19 have precluded most conventional forms of education, assessment, research and scientific discourse. Anatomists now require valid, robust and easy‐to‐use communication tools to facilitate remote teaching, learning and research. Recent advances in communication, video conferencing and digital technologies may facilitate continuity of teaching and research activities. Examples include highly‐interactive video conferencing technology, collaborative tools, social media and networking platforms. In this narrative review, we examine the utility of these technologies in supporting effective communication and professional activities of anatomists during COVID‐19 and after.     

Validation of the Expressions of Moral Injury Scale‐Military version‐Short Form

Military personnel may encounter morally injurious events that lead to emotional, social, and spiritual suffering that transcend and/or overlap with mental health diagnoses (e.g., post‐traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]). Advancement of scientific research and potential clinical innovation for moral injury (MI) requires a diversity of measurement approaches. Drawing on results from the bifactor model in Currier et al.'s (2017) psychometric evaluation of the Expressions of Moral Injury Scale‐Military version (EMIS‐M), this study validated a four‐item short form of the instrument with two samples of veterans with a history of war‐zone service. Namely, despite the reduced number of items, the EMIS‐M‐Short Form (SF) yielded favourable internal consistency and comparable levels of convergent validity with theoretically related constructs (e.g., PTSD and struggles with morality and ultimate meaning) as the full‐length version. Notwithstanding the possible utility of distinguishing between self‐ and other‐directed forms of MI, factor analytic results further revealed that the EMIS‐M‐SF was best conceptualized with a unidimensional factorial model that might allow for a general assessment of MI‐related outcomes. Overall, these initial results suggest that the EMIS‐M‐SF may hold promise as a short, reliable, and valid assessment of overall outcomes related to a possible MI.