Mentorship: Sparking a sense of wonder

by Daryl Ilbury

There are probably few better ways to kindle within students a connection with science, technology, engineering, or mathematics than by exploring the vast and beguiling laboratory that is our natural world. While valuable modes of information transfer, school classrooms and the media cannot beat complete immersion in a subject of study, and nature is bountiful in that regard. However, there is a way to add extra energy to the learning: if the subject under scrutiny has meaning. The outcome is transformative learning.

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Paying the price of the lack of diversity in US healthcare

by Daryl Ilbury

At first glance, there is a glaring lack of diversity in the United States’ healthcare workforce. Look deeper, and the dilemma takes on a far more disheartening form. Despite continuous efforts spanning over four decades, there seems to be little shift towards representative parity between the healthcare workforce and the nation it must serve. If anything, things are getting worse. This lack of parity is a significant bulwark to effective healthcare. Professor Christina Goode of the Western University of Health Sciences in California, USA, has identified contributing factors to this dilemma. It is a highly complex state of affairs, and making the necessary shift will require substantial changes beyond that to the country’s education system.

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A light touch: Changing the way we treat traumatic brain injury

by Daryl Ilbury

Contrary to popular perception, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is not the reserve of car accidents and punishing contact sports; it’s surprisingly common. Up to 50 million new cases of traumatic brain injury are registered each year worldwide. Notably, 80% of TBI occurs in low- to middle-income countries, and it is also the leading cause of death and disability in young adults. Overall, the global economic burden of TBI is estimated at 400 billion USD. 

Minimising the devastating effects of TBI doesn’t rely solely on reducing the risk of an injury; it’s also essential to improve treatment after one has happened. For that, physiological real-time monitoring of vital signals is critical. One inventor has made it his mission to create devices that can do this accurately, easily, anywhere, and what’s more, they are also non-invasive.

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Science under the spectre of war

by Daryl Ilbury

Vintners have a saying about their succulent charges: struggle builds character, meaning grapes exposed to challenging conditions develop notable wine. The same could be said for scientific research – struggle can produce remarkable output. That is undoubtedly true for Dr Rajko Igić, a Serbian pharmacologist and toxicologist. His work emerged against the backdrop of one of the most harrowing conflicts of modern times, and his story echoes that of other refugee scientists and those still committed to research while surrounded by war.

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University workplace health promotion programmes: Getting the balance right

by Daryl Ilbury

Gone are the days when employers would simply pay employees to get on with their work. Nowadays, there is a growing expectation that employers consider the overall wellbeing of their employees. Indeed, when advertising job vacancies, organisations promote their workplace health promotion programmes, touted as caring for their employees’ physical and mental wellbeing. But are there designs behind such programmes that adequately align them with the expectations and preferred outcomes of organisations and employees? How can highly diverse organisations get the balance right and allocate resources for such programmes effectively? And what if budget restrictions threaten to throw a spanner in the works? These are some of the questions behind research from Australia that examined health promotion programmes. What the research discovered has highlighted the challenges organisations face in addressing multiple expectations around employee health. The outcomes also raised some eyebrows.

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Green baize gladiators: Bridge as a mindsport for all

by Daryl Ilbury

Electronic sports, or esports, have evolved the concept of ‘sport’, especially around the mental acuity needed to play. Professor Samantha Punch at the University of Stirling, together with Dr David Scott at Abertay University, Scotland, see similarities in the card game bridge. They are helping establish a new academic subdiscipline – the sociology of mindsport. In the process, Punch and Scott have uncovered characteristics of the game bridge, including its intense physicality and team play, that have remained largely unnoticed. Their research also draws attention to bridge’s status as a mindsport that anyone can play.

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The paradox of Western hegemony of human nature

by Daryl Ilbury

The world faces unprecedented social and environmental challenges that demand a coordinated, global response. However, such a response is hampered by a conundrum. The challenges are partly the outcome of Western notions of what it is to be human, yet those very notions will probably dictate the spirit and strength of how the challenges are addressed. Dr Michael Zichy, a specialist in ethics at the University of Bonn in Germany, refers to this ‘Western hegemony’ around human values and suggests that they are in a paradoxical state of tension.

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Who will care for the mental healthcare professionals? A wake-up call from the Netherlands

by Daryl Ilbury

The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many lessons; one is that mental healthcare workers are not immune to the ravages of mental health problems. The pandemic put them under considerable stress in ways unimaginable before; many are still feeling it. Dr Anneloes van den Broek and Dr Lars de Vroege, senior researchers and clinical psychologists in mental healthcare in the Netherlands, reached out to their colleagues during and after the pandemic to find out how they were coping. What they learned is worrying.

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Building a community of learning and a legacy of mentoring

by Daryl Ilbury

To the uninitiated, life within the hallowed halls of academia can seem cultured and untroublesome; the only hard work is being allowed in. Such a perception is only partially accurate: the path to becoming an academic is indeed arduous. Some may argue this is to keep out all but the academically committed, but it can be a perceptual bulwark for students who believe – perhaps because they have been told – that they are not worthy. Changing those perceptions requires more than a kind word and a guiding hand. It demands significant intellectual and emotional involvement by committed educators with a proper understanding of the value of mentoring. One senior academic within education has helped build a legacy of mentoring by drawing on her own troubled path to those hallowed halls.

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The remarkable legacy of the International Space Weather Initiative

by Daryl Ilbury

From a celestial perspective, Earth’s position is anything but serene. It is like an exposed rock on a storm-lashed coastline, constantly battered by the elements, primarily, ironically, by what is essential for life on our planet: the Sun. Just as it is the primary driver of Earth’s weather, the Sun immediately powers the weather in the space around it. The term ‘space weather’ refers to the phenomena triggered by solar activity, such as solar wind – the stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun – and its effects in our thermosphere, magnetosphere, and ionosphere – a series of regions within our atmosphere hosting a relatively large number of electrically charged atoms and molecules.

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