Final year Australian nursing students’ experiences with bioscience: A cross‐sectional survey

Nursing students have reported bioscience to be challenging and difficult to understand. This might have a negative impact upon their ability to understand patients’ clinical conditions and nursing practice. We sought information about students’ experiences with bioscience. A total of 126 final year nursing students completed a questionnaire. The findings showed that the majority of participants considered bioscience subjects to require more work compared to nursing subjects (65.9%), and that they would like a better understanding of bioscience (73.8%), but understood that bioscience forms the foundation of nursing practice (76.2%). Younger participants without secondary school science rated bioscience harder than nursing subjects and spent more time studying bioscience compared to older participants. Participants without any secondary school science lacked an ability to apply bioscience concepts to patient conditions. These results showed that nursing students, especially those without secondary school science, would benefit from improved bioscience integration with nursing practice. Nursing and bioscience educators should consider greater alignment of bioscience with nursing practice subjects, especially earlier in the curriculum.     

Using bioscience knowledge in nursing: actions, interactions and reactions

This paper draws on empirical data from a study undertaken to explore the outcomes of the applied physiology component of a post-registration diploma in nursing (DN). Most students completing the DN were utilizing their new bioscience knowledge in clinical practice, and reported increased participation in interprofessional discussions and team decisions. Respondents found themselves better able to monitor and evaluate doctors' decisions and this led to friction with some medical colleagues. However, the strongest resistance came from senior nurses, very few of whom had completed advanced nursing courses in bioscience and who were generally unwilling to allow respondents to develop new roles. General managers were also perceived as a major barrier to change. There is little evidence of tangible benefits to the nurses themselves: most saw the DN qualification as a way of protecting their status as professional nurses in the face of managerially driven organizational change, rather than as a route to occupational advancement.     

Ethics,morality, and conflicting interests: how questionable professional integrity in some scientists supports global corporate influence in public health

Clinical and public health research, education, and medical practice are vulnerable to influence by corporate interests driven by the for-profit motive. Developments over the last 10 years have shown that transparency and self-reporting of corporate ties do not always mitigate bias. In this article, we provide examples of how sound scientific reasoning and evidence-gathering are undermined through compromised scientific enquiry resulting in misleading science, decision-making, and policy intervention. Various medical disciplines provide reference literature essential for informing public, environmental, and occupational health policy. Published literature impacts clinical and laboratory methods, the validity of respective clinical guidelines, and the development and implementation of public health regulations. Said literature is also used in expert testimony related to resolving tort actions on work-related illnesses and environmental risks. We call for increased sensitivity, full transparency, and the implementation of effective ethical and professional praxis rules at all relevant regulatory levels to rout out inappropriate corporate influence in science. This is needed because influencing the integrity of scientists who engage in such activities cannot be depended upon.     

Getting it right? An exploration of issues relating to the biological sciences in nurse education and nursing practice

Concerns have been expressed that bioscience education is not meeting the needs of nursing students in the UK. This paper explores the situation further by comparing student perceptions with those of experienced practitioners (Part One of the study) and also evaluates the confidence of staff nurses in explaining the rationale for care applied to a common but specific disorder (influenza; Part Two). Questionnaires were used. Responses were elicited from DipHE Nursing (Project 2000) adult/child branch students (n=153) from two universities and from adult/child care staff from their local clinical placements (n=171 in Part One of study; n=266 in Part Two). The questions asked followed two themes: (1) confidence in understanding biological science and (2) issues of teaching and learning. Most questions utilized a rating scale from 1 to 10; this scale provides no central value and a vertical line was drawn to encourage respondents to identify which half of the scale their responses came under (basically, a negative or positive viewpoint). The significance of the data distribution either side of the midline was analysed statistically (simple sign test), as were any differences in distribution between the groups (chi-square test). Median values were also determined. The data do not provide support for views that the biosciences are being significantly diminished by modern curricula, but also show no evidence for a great improvement in the bioscience knowledge base in recent years. What was surprising was the lack of confidence expressed by staff nurses: one illuminating finding was the lack of confidence in articulating their knowledge to patients and, even less so, to other health professionals. The paper reiterates a need for a national teaching and learning strategy for pre- and postregistration education in the biosciences. In particular, a means to raise the level of understanding of staff nurses must be identified urgently so that the mentoring of students in these subjects is improved.     

Ethics,morality, and conflicting interests: how questionable professional integrity in some scientists supports global corporate influence in public health

Abstract

Clinical and public health research, education, and medical practice are vulnerable to influence by corporate interests driven by the for-profit motive. Developments over the last 10 years have shown that transparency and self-reporting of corporate ties do not always mitigate bias. In this article, we provide examples of how sound scientific reasoning and evidence-gathering are undermined through compromised scientific enquiry resulting in misleading science, decision-making, and policy intervention. Various medical disciplines provide reference literature essential for informing public, environmental, and occupational health policy. Published literature impacts clinical and laboratory methods, the validity of respective clinical guidelines, and the development and implementation of public health regulations. Said literature is also used in expert testimony related to resolving tort actions on work-related illnesses and environmental risks. We call for increased sensitivity, full transparency, and the implementation of effective ethical and professional praxis rules at all relevant regulatory levels to rout out inappropriate corporate influence in science. This is needed because influencing the integrity of scientists who engage in such activities cannot be depended upon.     

医学院校生物科学特色专业的课程群建设研究与实践

基于医学院校生物科学专业的特色,分别构建了专业基础课程类的人体结构与功能学课程群和专业主干课程类的生化与分子生物学课程群,并结合实际详细阐述了课程群建设内容及优化措施,目的在于通过课程群的建设来促进生物科学特色专业建设.     

Discovering novel chemotherapeutic drugs for the third millennium

There is enormous potential for the discovery of innovative cancer drugs with improved efficacy and selectivity for the third millennium. In this review we show how novel mechanism-based agents are being discovered by focusing on the molecular targets and pathways that are causally involved in cancer formation, maintenance and progression. We also show how new technologies, from genomics through high throughput bioscience, combinatorial chemistry, rational drug design and molecular pharmacodynamic and imaging techniques, are accelerating the pace of cancer drug discovery. The process of contemporary small molecule drug discovery is described and progress and current issues are reviewed. New and potential targets and pathways for therapeutic intervention are illustrated. The first examples of a new generation of molecular therapeutics are now entering hypothesis-testing clinical trials and showing activity. The early years of the new millennium will see a range of exciting new agents moving from bench to bedside and beginning to impact on the management and cure of cancer.