Yes / The diversification of nursing and allied health profession (AHP) roles has seen unprecedented growth as organizations have sought to optimize limited health care resources. Within the UK health care system, the nonmedical consultant is viewed as the pinnacle of the clinical career ladder. Yet, nearly 15 years after their introduction, recruitment to these positions remains slow. Criticisms of nonmedical consultant practice include a lack of role clarity, a failure to work across the four domains of consultant practice, a lack of suitable applicants, and poor preparedness of new appointments. Although there is evidence exploring the nature and effectiveness of established consultant roles, little research addresses the development phase of aspiring consultants. Objectives To explore the transitional journey experienced by trainee consultant radiographers as they move from advanced to consultant practitioner within a locally devised consultant development programme. Design Longitudinal qualitative enquiry. Methods and Settings Five trainee consultant radiographers were recruited to a locally devised consultant practice development program within a single UK hospital trust. Semistructured interviews were undertaken at 1, 6, and 12 months with the trainees. Results A challenging journey was recounted involving five key emotional stages that occurred in a consistent and predictable order (ie, elation, denial, doubt, crisis, and recovery). The identified stages had close parallels with Hopson's Life Events model, suggesting that transition to consultant practice is a significant life event rather than a straightforward job promotion. Conclusions Current emphasis on the four domains of practice, although providing a clear framework for expected external role outcomes, overlooks the importance of the internal or subjective career development on the perceived success or failure of the role. Employers, educators, and professional bodies have a responsibility to facilitate aspirational consultants to explore and enhance their internal career development, offering more time to define themselves and their role with support to guide them through the transition journey.

Interest in the influence of emotions on behaviour, decision making, and leadership has accelerated over the last decade. Despite this, the influence of emotions on career advancement and behaviour within radiography and radiotherapy has largely been ignored. The ease of transition from one work role to another within an individual's career may be influenced by previous experience, personal characteristics, organizational environment, culture, and the nature of the role itself. Consequently, the transition from the often well-defined role of advanced or specialist practitioner to the more fluid role of consultant practitioner is associated with changing emotions as reported in the first part of this two-part series. What remains unexplored are the emotional triggers that pre-empt each stage in the transition cycle and how our understanding of these might support the successful implementation of consultant practitioner roles. To explore the emotional triggers that pre-empted each stage in the transitional journey of trainee consultant radiographers as they moved from advanced to consultant practitioner within a locally devised consultant development program. Five trainee consultant radiographers were recruited to a locally devised consultant practice development program within a single UK hospital trust. Semistructured interviews were undertaken at 1, 6, and 12 months with the trainees. Although all trainee consultant radiographers experienced the emotional events described in the first part of this two-part series in a predictable order (ie, elation, denial, doubt, crisis, and recovery), the timing of the events was not consistent. Importantly, four emotional triggers were identified, and the dominance of these and the reaction of individuals to them determined the emotional well-being of the individual over time. This study provides a unique and hitherto unexplored insight into the transition journey from advanced or specialist practitioner. Importantly, the findings suggest that commonly adopted supportive change interventions may, in fact, trigger the negative emotions they are intended to alleviate and disable rather than enable role transition.

No / Advanced practice roles are emerging in all disciplines at a rapid pace and reporting radiographers are ideally placed to work at such level. Advanced practitioners should demonstrate expert practice and show progression into three other areas of higher level practice. Most existing literature has focussed on the image interpretation aspect of the role, however there is little evidence that plain film reporting radiographers are undertaking activities beyond image interpretation and fulfilling the role of advanced practitioner. Letters were posted to every acute NHS trust in the UK, inviting reporting radiographers to complete an online survey. Both quantitative and qualitative information was sought regarding demographics and roles supplementary to reporting. A total of 205 responses were analysed; 83.3% of reporting radiographers describe themselves as advanced practitioner, however significantly less are showing progression into the four core functions of higher level practice. A total of 97.0% undertake expert practice, 54.7% have a leadership role, 19.8% provide expert lectures and 71.1% have roles encompassing service development or research, though most of these fall into the service development category. 34.5% felt that they were aware of the differences between extended and advanced practice though much less (9.3%) could correctly articulate the difference. Few individuals are aware of the difference between extended and advanced practice. Though the majority of plain film reporting radiographers identify themselves as advanced practitioners, significantly less evidence all four core functions of higher level practice. The number of individuals undertaking research and providing expert-level education is low.

Published Articles / Central University of Technology (CUT) holds awareness campaigns on yearly basis to educate and test students on health related issues. Basic knowledge about the spread of HIV and safe sexual practices has a critical impact on prevention of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other associated diseases such as TB. The problem among students at higher education institutions (HEIs) is that they are a high risk group of contracting HIV infection due to uninformed decisions that they end up making. This study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitudes of CUT students towards HIV, sexual transmitted infections (STIs) and sexuality. A cross sectional survey of 120 randomly selected undergraduate students (73 females, 47 males, aged 18-25 years) was performed. Questionnaires were used to assess the knowledge and attitude of the students towards HIV and AIDS. Generated knowledge and attitude scores from the student responses and gender variable were used to study their association. Students had heard about HIV, and 93% understood that HIV is not curable. Ninety percent of the students were aware of the symptoms of STIs, and some didn't know that STIs are associated with an increased chances of having HIV. Participants were well informed about selected aspects of HIV. A high number of participants were conversant with the modes of spread of HIV and the use of condoms in preventing STIs and HIV infection. The gap of knowledge between males and females, and the way they attend to the testing facility suggests the need for targeting males in the national awareness campaigns. The Medical Center should continue to host and fund health awareness campaigns because they play a major role as source of information.

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published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

The presentation of information is central to decisions to engage in a treatment and the uptake of health care behaviours. Hence understanding the processes which are responsible for framing effects within the health domain is crucial to achieving effective and unbiased communication. Within the message framing literature decision making is considered being a function of the valence of the information which is presented. Research has shown that individuals are more likely to attend a screening examination when information is presented as a loss a frame and more likely to engage in preventative behaviour when information is presented as a gain frame. However according to Rothman and Salovey (1997); Rothman, Kelly, Hertel, and Salovey (2003) it is the degree to which performing a health behaviour presents risk to the individual that determines whether a positively or negatively valenced version of information is more likely to be effective in encouraging the behaviour advocated. To date, studies assessing the hypothesis by Rothman and Salovey (1997); Rothman et al (2003) have only considered framing effects in the case of decision making for the self, and have not considered how framing of information may influence choice tasks. Additionally emotional reactions to risk information may play a part in determining the influence of framing effects (Lowe and Ferguson, 2003). The first experiment explored the acceptance of a blood transfusion for the self and on the behalf of a family member and friend within the frameworks of Rothman and Salovey (1997). In relation to this, the risk – as - feelings hypothesis by Lowenstein, Weber, Hsee, and Welch (2001) which postulates a direct effect of feelings onto choice, was examined. In the second chapter a standardised(word study changed to chapter as this not an experiment and so it is correct not to call as such chapter) instrument to measure factors around which people decide to accept blood transfusion products was developed. The final two experiments tested the two hypotheses in relation to a choice task and under a time constraint. Under a time constraint the potential for cognitive processes to play a role in decision making is reduced and the role of hot cognitions (emotions) is heightened. Hence the last experiment aimed to expose the role that affect may contribute to message framing effects by investigating whether the same framing effects could be observed when choosing between two blood transfusion products with and without a time constraint. When making a decision on the behalf of the self, a family member and a friend to accept a blood transfusion or to choose between two blood transfusion types a gain frame effect was observed. The framing effect did not alter under a time constraint in the case of decision making on the behalf of any potential recipient. Investigations of affect (trait, anticipated and immediate emotion) and cognitive motivational factors important to decision making as potential mediators produced null results. However, direct effects of immediate emotion were observed when decision making was for the self, family member and a friend in the first experiment and in the case of the self in Experiment 3. The findings obtained lend support to the increasing call for both cognitive and emotive processes to be incorporated into models of decision making, and to the argument by Rothman and Salovey (1997) that the function of the treatment under consideration moderates framing effects. The blood transfusion service gains valuable information on the importance of psychological factors to aid in planning public information campaigns.

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