Conference presentation by Kirtsy Fishburn

Kirsty Fishburn was invited to speak about ‘Prescribing in Mental Health’ and ‘Maintaining Competence in non-medical Prescribing Practice’ at Northamptonshire NHS Foundation Trust at their ‘Making a Difference Non-Medical Prescribing Conference.

Peter Draper in Egypt

Peter Draper writes:

I recently gave a paper and led a workshop on the topic of nursing competencies, at a conference organized by the Faculty of Nursing of Damanhur University in Egypt.  The university was established about 8 years ago, having formerly been a branch of Alexandria University.  The Faculty of Nursing has a separate building, and a dental faculty is currently being constructed, suggesting that, as in the UK, health embedding itself more securely as a leading feature in the higher education landscape.

The conference was conducted in both Arabic and English.  The opening ceremony was very formal.  I sat next to the Undersecretary for Health and other dignitaries, to assist in making numerous awards (I’m not sure what they were for) to recipients including military nurses, student prizewinners, and members of staff, and I also received two splendid plaques to grace my office!  I began my paper by confessing that I know very little Arabic apart from the traditional greeting ‘Salam Alaikum’ – for which I received a big round of applause and a cheer.

On the second day of my visit I held a 3-hour workshop on competencies in education, and this enabled me to discuss the state of nursing internationally with students and staff.  There is a lot that’s great about nursing education in Egypt.  They have a four-year undergraduate programme, with an additional compulsory internship to embed their students’ professional learning. The nursing research programme is rapidly growing, and I heard some very interesting papers.  However professional life also has its challenges.  The government is currently reducing the size of its payroll and universities are reducing their staffing complement; and as a predominantly female profession, Egyptian nurse colleagues can also find themselves constrained in a male-dominated world.

I was treated like a celebrity throughout my stay.  Students took hundreds of selfies with me, and I signed and stamped almost a thousand certificates.  I am grateful for the hospitality of colleagues (thank you Dr Mohammed, Dr Reem and Dr Reem, and also Dr Doaa) who enabled me to enjoy local Egyptian food, and who drove me safely around.  (Driving in Egypt? That’s another story – buy me a coffee and I’ll tell you about it).  I left after my short trip with a great deal that is of value: a new word in my Arabic vocabulary (shokran), a handsome bust of Tutankhamen (made in China), a deeper understanding of international nursing, and some genuine friendships with amazing colleagues.

I am grateful to Roger Watson, Tracey Heath and Jane Wray who provided additional ideas and materials for my paper and workshop.

STaR project team in Vancouver

Jane Wray and Helen Gibson reported our work at an International Conference in Vancouver, read their report here.

Barbara Guinn, Biomedical Sciences attended the International Gynecologic Cancer Society Annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro

Barbara Guinn, Department of Biomedical Sciences, recently attended the International Gynecologic Cancer Society Annual Meeting that was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. An electronic poster entitled ‘A novel biomarker for early stage ovarian cancer, and a new target for immunotherapy’ by Ghazala Khan, Kelly Grayson, Suzanne Brooks, Ken Mills and Barbara Guinn was presented locally. Attendance at the conference has led to networking opportunities including an invitation to speak at the Inaugural Opportunities in Ovarian Cancer medical meeting entitled “New Directions for Translational Research” at the University of Strathclyde Technology and Innovation Centre in January 2020.

“If we are serious about nurse retention we must nurture and support our staff”

Jane Wray, Helen Gibson
David Barrett, Analisa Smyth
and Rosie Stenhouse

At this year’s Royal College At this year’s Royal College of Nursing (RCN) International Nursing Conference and Exhibition 2019 (Sheffield Hallam University, 3-5 September), the STaR project team were delighted to share our preliminary findings with an international audience of nursing academics, practitioners and researchers.

Jane Wray hosted a symposium of four papers on “Retention of newly qualified nurses (NQNs) in the UK National Health Service (NHS) on the 2^nd day of the conference. David Barrett presented the findings from the STaR project Rapid Evidence Review, and this was followed by Jane and Helen Gibson (STaR project post-doctoral researcher) on the interview data “Perspectives on support during the transition from student to NQN: Views of students, NQNs, academics and clinical managers”. The third paper was by Dr Rosie Stenhouse (The University of Edinburgh) on “Job Embeddedness: Towards a Theory of Retention in Newly Qualified Nurses/Midwives” and she presented findings from interviews with 23 early career nurses about their experience of the workplace. This work is part of a larger longitudinal study exploring engagement levels, emotional intelligence, resilience and burnout yearly, retention, academic grade and following qualification, pay.  The final one was by Analisa Smythe (Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust) on “A qualitative study of experiences of online peer support for NQNs” – a project also funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing that used focus groups with NQNs to refine an online peer support intervention.

There was lots of interesting comments and questions and it was great to hear from recently qualified nurses in the audience whose experiences appear to be very similar to the ones we reported - further validating our findings. The wider discussion at the end of the symposium focused on workforce and retention and the key message was that if organisations want to attract and retain staff they need to ensure that all staff (not just NQNs) are given the ‘the right support, at the right time and in the right place’ and that ‘if we are serious about nurse retention we must nurture and support our staff’.

Throughout the conference workforce issues including safe staffing, staff shortages and retention were repeatedly referred to. We also attended a symposium led by Judy Brook (City University) on “Development and implementation of an intervention to increase retention and decrease burnout of early career nurses” – another project supported by the Burdett Trust for Nursing.  It was interesting to see how coproduction is being used to develop an intervention to support transition. This team have published a systematic review related to their project and you can find out further information about their work by contacting JudyBrook.

Zoe Dale at The Midwifery Society

Zoe Dale addressed the Midwifery Society this week and has been invited to write a blog post for All4Maternity or an article for The Practising Midwife (or both).

Ros Masamha in Oxford: Creativity and Innovation Research Day

Roselyne Masamha presented at the Creativity and Innovation Research Day at University of Oxford on 15  June 2019, the presentation - Different, Resilient and Relevant - was in the form of a conversation with Dr Julius (Associate Professor of Innovation and Development), University College London; followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Dr Barbara Guinn (BMS) was an invited speaker at the 19th Progress in Vaccines Against Cancer conference, held in Athens Greece this month. She spoke about the data being generated by two MSc students in her lab, Ms Stephanie Jordaens, an Erasmus student from the University of Antwerp and Ms Leah Cooksey a MSc by Research student in the group. The talk entitled 'Immunotherapeutic targets for the treatment of adult B-cell acute lymphocytic leukaemia' by Leah Cooksey, Stephanie Jordaens, Suzanne Bonney, Lawrence Orchard, Viggo van Tendeloo, Ken Mills, Kim Orchard, and Barbara Guinn is now being prepared for publication.

Ros Masamha, Lecturer in Learning Disabilities Nursing gave a keynote presentation on Challenging Methodologies on 2 April 2019 at the University of Leeds for the 13th Research Students Education Conference(RSEC) 2019. RSEC is an interdisciplinary conference for postgraduate researchers at various stages in their project, this year we explored the diverse challenges in research methodologies through an interactive workshop, posters and presentations.

The Personal is political and Where is the S in HE?

On 20 March 2018 Roselyn Masamha was invited as a panelist to be in conversation with Sara de Jong (University of York)as part of the xCHANGE festival of 40 events in March to mark International Women’s Day at Birmingham City University. Roselyn and Sara's invitations were in recognition of their research work and publications on decolonisation and feminisms in teaching and learning. The festival engages Women in HE research and the panel was under the themes: The Personal is political  and Where is the S in HE?

National Apprenticeships Conference presentation

University of Hull (Deborah Robinson), Hull and East Yorkshire hospitals (Mike Wright) and  Hull College (Michelle Swithenbank) presented together at the National Apprenticeships Conference in London 5 December 2018 on our innovative solution to the nursing talent pipeline in Hull.

University of Hull Scarborough & Coast Business Day

Fiona Earle

29 November 2018

Scarborough Spa

Dr Jane Wray (Director of Research, School of Health and Social Work), Dr Fiona Earle (Senior Lecturer, Psychology, School of Life Sciences) and Fay Treloar (Director of Business Engagement and Enterprise) represented the Faculty at the recent Scarborough & Coast Business Day.

Fay Treloar

The event brought together businesses from across the region to discuss and provided an opportunity for the University to showcase its research, innovation and enterprise to the business community. 

Jane Wray

The event took place at Scarborough Spa was opened by the VC Professor Susan Lea and included an after lunch speech by Lord John Prescott.  The presentation from the FHS team was focused on ‘Supporting the Health and Wellbeing of Your Workforce”. Fay provided an overview of FHS business and enterprise initiatives and this was followed by Jane presenting on ‘Supporting an ageing workforce in SMEs’ and then Fiona on ‘Exploring areas of high risk to employee health and wellbeing’.

There were lots of useful questions from the audience and feedback on the event was very positive with many new business contacts for the FHS.

What a coincidence!

Tim Buescher writes:

 

I sat down on a plane to Cork, heading for the 10^th Critical Voices Network Ireland conference and heard a familiar voice coming from the seats behind me. I turned round and found one of the external examiners at my viva exam, sat right behind me! I was introduced to other academics from UCLAN who made feel like a welcome part of their group. This spirit of welcome and inclusion pervaded the conference, even though there were about 600 attendees.

This conference brings together activists, academics, service users, survivors of mental health services and systems and their supporters, clinicians, alternative practitioners, students (the conference runs around and within the usual teaching curriculum) and it’s free to attend. My presentation on compulsive hoarding and co-production was well received by those present and I can see future projects arising from this. In addition, people in my session managed to find local sources of help for people struggling with their possessions.

For anyone interested in finding out more about the conference, the book of abstracts can be viewed here

Some of the plenary sessions were live streamed and are available to view here

 

For anyone interested in developing coproduction in mental health research and practice, mad studies, peer workers, recovery, mad politics there is a lot to think about here.

News from Biomedical Sciences

1) Sophie Feathery (PhD student in Biomedical Sciences, UoH) won the prize for the best poster at the 2018 conference of British Society of Haemostasis and Thrombosis. See Twitter.

2) Furthermore, Yahya Madkhali (also PhD student in Biomedical Sciences, UoH) was included in the top five abstract presentations for trainees at the same meeting.

3) Researchers from University of Hull presented a total of 9 abstracts: 6 posters (higher than any other institute) and were selected to present a further 3 oral presentations (second highest after Imperial College) at the 2018 conference of British Society of Haemostasis and Thrombosis.

Faculty of Health Sciences Professor Mark Hayter at Georgetown University, Washington DC

Professor Mark Hayter visited the school of nursing at Georgetown University, Washington DC to meet Faculty and give a lecture on academic publishing. He also held meetings to discuss research links with Hull

Jacquie White in Australia

Jacquie White presented on the impact of implementing the Health Improvement Profile at The Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Annual Conference (24-26 October 2018) in Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Dr Andrew Garrett presents in Croatia

Dr Andrew Garrett from Sport, Health+Exercise Science and the Postgraduate Research Director in the Faculty of Health Science has just presented his work at the 7^th International Conference of Physiology and Pharamcology in Split, Croatia.

This work investigated the ‘Physiological and performance differences in the follicular and luteal menstrual phases of moderately-trained females during intermittent exercise in the heat’. This project has been funded by the Joel Havelange Research Scholarship awarded from FIFA.

Abstract:

Physiological and performance differences in the follicular and luteal menstrual phases of moderately-trained females during intermittent exercise in the heat

Andrew Garrett^1*, Jarrod Gritt¹, Edward Dodd¹, Victoria Biddlecombe¹, Damien Gleadall-Siddall¹, Rachel Burke¹, Richard Turpin¹, Jake Shaw¹, James Bray¹, Huw Jones² & Grant Abt¹.

Sport, Health and Exercise Science, School of Life Science, Faculty of Health Science, University of Hull, UK¹.

School of Mathematics and Physical Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Hull, UK².

*Corresponding author

Introduction: The menstrual cycle plays a key role in athletic performance but how it affects exercise for trained females in the heat is unclear. Therefore, the aims of this study were to investigate physiological and performance differences in the follicular and luteal phases of moderately-trained females during intermittent exercise in the heat.

Methods: Ten, healthy, active, moderately-trained females (Mean [SD]; age 22.6 [2.7] y; stature 165.3 [6.2] cm; body mass 61.5 [8.7] kg; VO2_peak 43.9 [8.6] mL^.kg^-1.min^-1) participated. The heat stress test (HST) (31.0°C; 50% RH) consisted of 9x5min (45-mins) of intermittent exercise based on match-play of female footballers. Completing two HSTs (HST1 and HST2) separated by one week, in the follicular and luteal menstrual phases respectively. Determined by self-reported menstrual cycle questionnaire and plasma 17β-estradiol.

Results: In the follicular (HST1) versus luteal (HST2) menstrual phases there was limited change in resting T_re by 0.05 (95% CI -0.20 to 0.27°C; P = 0.74), end-exercise T_re (0.10; -0.20 to 0.40°C; P=0.47); resting T_sk (-0.45; -1.15 to 0.20°C; P=0.15), end-exercise T_sk (-0.20; -0.95 to 0.60°C; P=0.64); resting T_b (-0.15; -0.30 to 0.05°C; P=0.14), end-exercise T_b (0.05; -0.20 to 0.30°C; P=0.56). Similarly, there was limited change in end-exercise f_c (1; -6 to 7 b^.min^-1; P=0.84); %PV (-3.7; -10.5 to 3.0%; P=0.22) and mean power output (6; -25 to 36 W; P=0.68) in the sprint performance test.

Discussion and conclusion: This work has demonstrated limited physiological and performance differences in the follicular and luteal menstrual phases of moderately-trained females during intermittent exercise in the heat. This may be due to trained females having less bi-phasic fluctuations in steroidal hormones that may attenuate the differences in the effector responses of cutaneous vasodilation during heat stress.   

Cultivating Compassion, Positive Emotion and Wellbeing

Dr Philip Molyneux presented two posters based on research recently completed by Trainee Clinical Psychologists (now qualified) – Sean Malkin and Mary Walker – at the Compassionate Mind Foundation’s 7th International Conference, themed “Cultivating Compassion, Positive Emotion and Wellbeing”. These were both supervised by myself and Tim Alexander.

Sean’s poster won 2nd prize at the conference.

Difference, Diversity, Diffraction: Confronting Hegemonies and Dispossessions

Roselyn Masamha presented at the 10th European Feminist Research Conference "Difference, Diversity, Diffraction: Confronting Hegemonies and Dispossessions" which took place from the 12th - 15th of September 2018 in Göttingen, Germany. Roselyn jointly with the editors and other authors also launched the recently published and latest Teaching with gender book.

This international conference takes place every three years since 1991, each time hosted at a different European University. It is one of the major opportunities for feminist, gender studies scholars, activists, artists and policy makers from all over Europe and across disciplinary boundaries to gather and exchange experiences. This year it attracted the highest number of participants since its inception making it the largest feminist conference thus far, with keynote speakers from Canada, Switzerland,India and Poland.

The conference addressed fundamental issues of gender and diversity studies: social inequality, difference and equal opportunities. The subtitle "confronting" included the appeal to reflect social exclusion and discrimination and to find affirmative ways of dealing with diversity in respect of European and global dimensions.

Tim Buescher presents at International Conference

Last week I presented at the 5^th British International Authoethnography Conference in Bristol. There were approximately 100 people in attendance from a range of academic disciplines from institutions in the US, Norway, Malta, Portugal and all over the UK, including Hull alumni.

Here I am, addressing a full auditorium (no parallel sessions on the first day)! It went well and I made some new friends.

Panel Session 2: Collaborative autoethnographies: working at the border and as a member of a research team.

Tweets from the conference can found using the hashtag #reimaginingexperience.

A short film featuring some highlights from the conference can be viewed here.

More information is available here.