Understanding roles in health care through interprofessional educational experiences.

BACKGROUND: Students can find interacting within a healthcare team challenging. It is important for students to understand their role and respect those of other healthcare team members. Interprofessional education (IPE) is a strategy for exploring the roles of self and others within the team. AIM: The purpose of this study was to evaluate nursing students' perceptions of roles and responsibilities following an IPE experience. METHODS: Students in an undergraduate baccalaureate degree nursing programme participated in a two-day IPE event with students in the physician's assistant's (PA) programme, pharmacy programme, and physical therapy (PT) programme. FINDINGS: Self-perception and the perception of others were two main themes that emerged. The results suggested that roles and responsibilities are often misunderstood. CONCLUSION: Educators must be committed to educating our future healthcare workforce on role expectations and responsibilities within an individual's own profession and that of others. This education should start in the foundation stages of each discipline's educational curricula.

Pervasive Effects of Wildfire on Foliar Endophyte Communities in Montane Forest Trees.

Plants in all terrestrial ecosystems form symbioses with endophytic fungi that inhabit their healthy tissues. How these foliar endophytes respond to wildfires has not been studied previously, but is important given the increasing frequency and intensity of severe wildfires in many ecosystems, and because endophytes can influence plant growth and responses to stress. The goal of this study was to examine effects of severe wildfires on endophyte communities in forest trees, with a focus on traditionally fire-dominated, montane ecosystems in the southwestern USA. We evaluated the abundance, diversity, and composition of endophytes in foliage of Juniperus deppeana (Cupressaceae) and Quercus spp. (Fagaceae) collected contemporaneously from areas affected by recent wildfire and paired areas not affected by recent fire. Study sites spanned four mountain ranges in central and southern Arizona. Our results revealed significant effects of fires on endophyte communities, including decreases in isolation frequency, increases in diversity, and shifts in community structure and taxonomic composition among endophytes of trees affected by recent fires. Responses to fire were similar in endophytes of each host in these fire-dominated ecosystems and reflect regional fire-return intervals, with endophytes after fire representing subsets of the regional mycoflora. Together, these findings contribute to an emerging perspective on the responses of diverse communities to severe fire, and highlight the importance of considering fire history when estimating endophyte diversity and community structure for focal biomes.

Integration of leadership competencies in a community health simulation.

AIM: The purpose of this article is to address ways in which a nursing faculty can build nursing leadership competencies into a nursing programme. This article describes the use of simulation as a compelling learning strategy. BACKGROUND: Nurses need to be prepared to meet the demands of mass casualty events. With the growing need for major incident training, leadership competency development is a critical gap in the literature. EVALUATION: A collaborative simulation was used to help students apply classroom knowledge. In this simulation, students participated in major incident triage and the application of leadership competencies to appropriately manage victims' care. CONCLUSION: Collaboration among faculty members when designing simulation scenarios is a powerful approach to nursing education. Students were able to engage in necessary skills for their future nursing practice.

Fungal endophytes in aboveground tissues of desert plants: infrequent in culture, but highly diverse and distinctive symbionts.

In hot deserts, plants cope with aridity, high temperatures, and nutrient-poor soils with morphological and biochemical adaptations that encompass intimate microbial symbioses. Whereas the root microbiomes of arid-land plants have received increasing attention, factors influencing assemblages of symbionts in aboveground tissues have not been evaluated for many woody plants that flourish in desert environments. We evaluated the diversity, host affiliations, and distributions of endophytic fungi associated with photosynthetic tissues of desert trees and shrubs, focusing on nonsucculent woody plants in the species-rich Sonoran Desert. To inform our strength of inference, we evaluated the effects of two different nutrient media, incubation temperatures, and collection seasons on the apparent structure of endophyte assemblages. Analysis of >22,000 tissue segments revealed that endophytes were isolated four times more frequently from photosynthetic stems than leaves. Isolation frequency was lower than expected given the latitude of the study region and varied among species a function of sampling site and abiotic factors. However, endophytes were very species-rich and phylogenetically diverse, consistent with less arid sites of a similar latitudinal position. Community composition differed among host species, but not as a function of tissue type, sampling site, sampling month, or exposure. Estimates of abundance, diversity, and composition were not influenced by isolation medium or incubation temperature. Phylogenetic analyses of the most commonly isolated genus (Preussia) revealed multiple evolutionary origins of desert-plant endophytism and little phylogenetic structure with regard to seasonality, tissue preference, or optimal temperatures and nutrients for growth in vitro. Together, these results provide insight into endophytic symbioses in desert-plant communities and can be used to optimize strategies for capturing endophyte biodiversity at regional scales.

SERVICE-LEARNING AND INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION IN NURSING: A Critical Need.

Service-learning and interprofessional education can have an effect on nursing students' learning experiences, attitudes, transcultural knowledge, and on patient outcomes. Interprofessional education is a method in which healthcare students learn their different roles and responsibilities, and recognize how patients benefit from the collaborative process. The purpose of this paper is to review professional literature to determine the best practices for implementation of service-learning and interprofessional education into nursing curricula.

Through the lens of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN) new Essentials: Integration of human trafficking education and simulation within baccalaureate nursing curricula.

With an increase in human trafficking in the United States, there is a need for nursing curricula to provide education and engagement in recognizing and appropriately caring for victims. The purpose of this article is to describe an undergraduate nursing simulation involving a human trafficking victim with a discussion of how the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN) Essentials were addressed by the simulation. The results of the course evaluation indicated that providing an opportunity for baccalaureate nursing students to engage in a simulation involving a victim of human trafficking allowed them to solidify classroom theory and education. Students reported increased confidence in recognizing victims after participating in the education and simulation. In addition, the simulation met many of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's new Essentials further highlighting the importance of this clinical activity within the nursing curriculum. Nursing education is obligated to empower students to identify social determinants of health and advocate for social justice related to vulnerable populations. Because nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, they are likely to encounter human trafficking victims and should be educated to identify victims in practice.

Utilizing Simulation-Based Training to Increase Preeclampsia Recognition in Undiagnosed Patients.

Research suggests that simulation in nursing education is a learning strategy that promotes critical thinking and utilization of clinical judgment in a safe environment without fear of retribution if errors are made. Senior nursing students in a small liberal arts university participated in a complex simulation that involved a pregnant patient with preeclampsia. The students were charged with doing a complete assessment of the patient and unborn baby. Upon completion of the assessment, the students utilized their critical thinking skills to determine the best treatment for the patient and baby that rendered the best outcomes. The goal of the exercise was to provide the students with a realistic scenario that advanced quickly into an emergent situation. The majority of students will not work in labor and delivery, but they will experience situations in their respective units that require quick thinking and critical decision-making. This simulation was a strategy to help facilitate these students into their transition to practice.

Perceptions concerning college student suicide: data from four universities.

The issue of suicide, including prevention, intervention, and postvention, continues to be a problem on college campuses. For this study, data concerning a variety of issues related to college student suicide were collected from 1,865 students at four different universities. Incidence, risk factors, and potential solutions are described, as well as implications for mental health professionals in university settings.