A pilot study to assess the impact of aboriginal and torres strait islander cultural humility webinars on australian medical school students.

BACKGROUND: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework helps higher education providers to deliver safe and well-informed cultural humility education. However, there is currently a scarcity of evidence surrounding the efficacy and impact of cultural humility education. This study will use qualitative and quantitative research methods to evaluate learning outcomes from an Indigenous health educational webinar aimed at Australian medical students. METHODS: A pilot study was conducted following a group of Australian medical students who attended an educational Indigenous health (IH) culturally responsive webinar. Recruitment was conducted via the webinar hosts' social media pages. Quantitative methods involved sending one pre- and two post-webinar questionnaires to attendees. To assess participants' retention of information, one post-webinar survey was sent out immediately after the webinar and another three months after the webinar. These questionnaires were designed to reflect pre-determined learning objectives for the webinar. Qualitative methods involved a focus group discussion to identify common themes from participant feedback. RESULTS: Twenty-six participants were included in the final quantitative analysis. Most of the participants were clinical students between 18 and 24 years old who did not identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. There was a significant increase (p = 0.007) between pre-intervention (M = 0.35, SD = 0.26) and post-webinar knowledge for the learning outcome exploring the links between health and education (M = 047, SD = 0.25). No results were obtained from the three months post-intervention questionnaire. The qualitative analysis synthesized feedback from three participants and identified presenter delivery style as an important mediator of webinar effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant increase in knowledge and understanding for the learning outcome that explored the links between health and education. We attribute this partly to the engaging and conversational delivery style of the webinar presenters. The importance of Indigenous facilitators that encourage reflective teaching should not be understated. Our results suggest that cultural humility webinars can have a positive impact on medical students' understanding of the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander health landscape. This pilot study warrants further research on a larger population.

Development of a quality-of-life measure for adult patients with sequential bilateral cochlear implants.

It has been well established in the literature that hearing difficulties can have an adverse effect on the quality of life of an individual. This study looked at developing a quality-of-life measure for adult patients who received bilateral cochlear implants sequentially. The sample consisted of patients from the UK National Health Service who have received two implants sequentially. The study was divided into three stages. A retrospective open-ended questionnaire and face-to-face interviews were carried out in to develop a close-ended questionnaire for the same purposes. This is now being validated and tested for its reliability. Categories from the qualitative data were identified and these were the foundations on which the close-ended questionnaire was developed. The 'Outcomes from Bilateral Cochlear Implantation' questionnaire originally had 42 questions. Test-retest reliability was investigated and some amendments were made to reflect this. Participants will next be asked to fill in the amended questionnaire together with another three quality-of-life questionnaires (generic and disease-specific ones) and the results will be compared. Better understanding of quality of life after receiving the second implant will aid professionals dealing with these patients in understanding what the practical limitations of these devices are and advising future patients accordingly.

Localization performance of unilateral cochlear implant users for speech, tones and noise.

Bilateral cochlear implants aim to improve sound localization compared to monaural implants, among other potential benefits. Monaural cochlear implants should not support localization in the horizontal plane as there are no interaural level and time difference cues available, although some previous studies have suggested limited capability. As background to other studies of bilateral implantation, the localization abilities of 18 monaural cochlear implantees were investigated experimentally in an anechoic chamber, using various sound stimuli with different amounts of temporal information. The effects of head movement and reverberation were also investigated. Localization performance was found to be close to chance for all stimuli. It is confirmed that monaural cochlear implants are unable to support useful auditory sound localization, even when head movements are allowed.

Torulopsis bacarum, Torulopsis pustula and Torulopsis multis-gemmis sp. nov., three new yeasts from soft fruit.

Three new species of yeasts isolated from fresh soft fruit are described. Torulopsis pustula was isolated from blackcurrants, Torulopsis bacarum from blackcurrants, strawberries and raspberries, and Torulopsis multis-gemmis from raspberries. All differ from known species in the test substrates they utilize. In addition, cells of Torulopsis pustula often form a bulbous projection near their apices from which budding takes place. These buds are frequently pear- or heart-shaped.