Of Young People and Internet Cafés

This study examines how adolescent experience in Internet cafés (known as wangba in Chinese) relates to academic attainment in urban, rural, and Tibetan schools of China. By documenting the frustrations teenagers express in their negotiations with adults surrounding access to and use of wangba and, by comparing self-reported academic standing of students from similar backgrounds with how they differ in their experience in wangba, the study finds that visiting wangba is not strongly correlated with the probability of students reporting either high- or under-achievement. While students without any experience in wangba are substantially less likely to report academic underperformance, the association disappears after matching when the logit regression model is less model-dependent and vulnerable to the problems associated with missing data. The paper concludes that visiting wangba alone is not systematically correlated with academic attainment, and that much adult anxiety concerning adolescent visit to wangba represents moral-technological panic and, offers a simplified explanation for educational problems that have deep macrosocial roots.

Does prior healthcare experience predict success on clinical courses and add value to admissions processes?

Objectives: This work sought to assess whether prior clinical experience provided any guide to likely course achievement from three completed cohorts of Physician Associates at the University of Sheffield. Methods: Sixty students who entered the PA course at TUoS since it began in 2016 were included in the study. Each students' original course application was reviewed for healthcare experience and mapped against first sit examination scores. Statistical analysis was undertaken with a two-tailed t-test. Results: No correlation was found between previous healthcare experience and performance in examinations. Students with previous healthcare experience performed slightly worse than those without in the OSCE examination but not at a level of statistical significance. Conclusions: The use of clinical experience as part of the criteria of entry does not predict success on a Physician Associate course. We support the position of the 2010 Ottawa conference that quality assured methodologies along with objective cut offs for previous academic attainment are the most appropriate way to select students for clinical courses.

Paediatric narcolepsy: a review of diagnosis and management

Narcolepsy is a chronic disabling neurological sleep disorder that requires lifelong treatment. We have outlined the clinical features of narcolepsy, the assessment and diagnosis process and have summarised the existing treatment options for children and adolescents with narcolepsy. In the future, the approach to management of paediatric narcolepsy should ideally be in a multidisciplinary setting, involving specialists in sleep medicine, sleep physiology, neurologists and psychologists/psychiatrists. A multidisciplinary approach will help to manage the potential impact of narcolepsy on children and adolescents who are in a stage of their life that is critical to their physical, emotional and social development and their academic attainment.