Catching up

Another day of catching up, including:

• Talking to a charity sector partner organisation about recruiting a student intern to work with them in the coming academic year.  
• Making arrangements for students to resit exams deferred from May/June, including special needs such as extra time and particular colour of paper (yellow can help with some disabilities).
• Marking some literature review papers submitted by students on the Health Psychology Masters programme (Reducing weight bias in healthcare professionals, home carers' experience of dementia care, types of chronic fatigue).  
• Giving feedback on the data analysis a PhD student has done.
• Attempting to write references for recent graduates (with some difficulty as the online student records system seems to have temporarily gone phut)

Hoping to get back into my own research tomorrow!

Enjoyable student discussion, and some frustration too.

One hour plus meeting today with student on MSc health psych about his dissertation plans, and a piece of coursework he is about to attempt on my module M99PY Self management of chronic conditions.

Very interesting dissertation proposal on an aspect of caregiver burden in home-based care for dementia.
Good case study plan too - choosing a self management intervention for type 2 diabetes.

We had a very productive discussion - just wish I could spend an equal time with all the students I teach but the numbers mean that it doesn't bear thinking about.

Meanwhile have been writing a draft training programme in motivational interviewing for a public sector organisation - more later if we win the bid - and giving a two hour lecture to undergraduates on the discursive defense of threatened identities.  We were 'discussing' two key papers:

Horton-Salway, M. (2001) 'Narrative Identities and the Management of Personal Accountability in Talk About ME: A Discursive Psychology Approach to Illness Narrative.' Journal of Health Psychology 6, (2) 247-259
Willott, S. and Griffin, C. (1999) 'Building Your Own Lifeboat: Working-Class Male Offenders Talk About Economic Crime.' British Journal of Social Psychology 38, 445-460

...or rather I should say I was talking about them.  Only two students had actually read a paper in advance of the class, so the seminar discussion fell rather flat.  I think I may also have offended one student with my reply to her question: "What is the exam on? Are we having a lecture on the exam?"

I asked her how many lectures she'd had on the module and her exasperated response suggested that she knew what I meant but dared not say out loud (That the exam is on the topics covered in the lectures we've been having all year - or did you think I just turned up and lectured because I'd nothing better to do...?).

I fear I may have compromised my student satisfaction scores...

Oh and gave feedback to a PhD student who is champing at the bit to submit for ethical approval of her next research study (apologies for the horse metaphor Felicity)

Setting the bar

Had a meeting today with a senior colleague to set my 'performance objectives' (urgh) for the coming year. As the achievement (or otherwise) of these now has an impact on whether we get our annual salary increments the process has become even more anxiety-provoking than ever...

Had a nice first lecture today with students on the masters in health psychology. We were focusing on theory and terminology related to disability, impairment and chronic illness.  After I highlighted the specific conditions we will be studying in more detail over the coming weeks (see yesterday) one student asked for more info on dementia.  This used to be a specific lecture which we covered in depth, but due to time restrictions we had to remove it in favour of diabetes (tough choice - kind of wish there was more time).  So here is the reading I recommended to him:

Banerjee, S., Samsi, K., Petrie, C. D., Alvir, J., Treglia, M., Schwam, E. M., & de Valle, M. (2009). What do we know about quality of life in dementia? A review of the emerging evidence on the predictive and explanatory value of disease specific measures of health related quality of life in people with dementia. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 24(1), 15-24. doi:10.1002/gps.2090

Caddell, L. S., & Clare, L. (2010). The impact of dementia on self and identity: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(1), 113-126. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2009.10.003

De Boer, M. E., Hertogh, C. M. P. M., Dröes, R. -., Riphagen, I. I., Jonker, C., & Eefsting, J. A. (2007). Suffering from dementia - the patient's perspective: A review of the literature. International Psychogeriatrics, 19(6), 1021-1039. doi:10.1017/S1041610207005765

Deep, K. S., Hunter, A., Murphy, K., & Volandes, A. (2010). "It helps me see with my heart": How video informs patients' rationale for decisions about future care in advanced dementia. Patient Education and Counseling, 81(2), 229-234. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2010.02.004

Hamilton-West, K. E., Milne, A. J., Chenery, A., & Tilbrook, C. (2010). Help-seeking in relation to signs of dementia: A pilot study to evaluate the utility of the common-sense model of illness representations. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 15(5), 540-549. doi:10.1080/13548506.2010.487109

O'Connor, D. W., Ames, D., Gardner, B., & King, M. (2009). Psychosocial treatments of behavior symptoms in dementia: A systematic review of reports meeting quality standards. International Psychogeriatrics, 21(2), 225-240. doi:10.1017/S1041610208007588

O'Connor, D. W., Ames, D., Gardner, B., & King, M. (2009). Psychosocial treatments of psychological symptoms in dementia: A systematic review of reports meeting quality standards. International Psychogeriatrics, 21(2), 241-251. doi:10.1017/S1041610208008223

Seignourel, P. J., Kunik, M. E., Snow, L., Wilson, N., & Stanley, M. (2008). Anxiety in dementia: A critical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28(7), 1071-1082. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2008.02.008

Van Der Roest, H. G., Meiland, F. J. M., Maroccini, R., Comijs, H. C., Jonker, C., & Dröes, R. -. (2007). Subjective needs of people with dementia: A review of the literature. International Psychogeriatrics, 19(3), 559-592. doi:10.1017/S1041610206004716