Re-framing and managing conflict

Conflict is a normal part of everyone's lives, this includes both adults and children. By reflecting on practice in one particular setting, this article introduces the idea of re-framing conflict and how seeing through a person-centred lens can be beneficial for everyone.

Normal Polytopes and Ellipsoids

We show that: (1) unimodular simplices in a lattice 3-polytope cover a neighborhood of the boundary of the polytope if and only if the polytope is very ample, (2) the convex hull of lattice points in every ellipsoid in $\mathbb{R}^3$ has a unimodular cover, and (3) for every $d\geqslant 5$, there are ellipsoids in $\mathbb{R}^d$, such that the convex hulls of the lattice points in these ellipsoids are not even normal. Part (c) answers a question of Bruns, Michałek, and the author.

March minusivity: Strategies of immunising and counter-immunising in the atmosphere of the Polish 1968

The article discusses mechanisms of social immunisation in the context of the Polish ‘March 1968’. Whereas immunising strategies are a normal part of sociality, I argue that around 1968 a growing anxiety about the mechanisms of being-in-common led to an autoimmunitarian dissociation of the Polish society, which I conceptualise as an atmosphere of minusivity. Strategies to counter exclusions and discriminations were trapped in this immunitarian paradigm as well. A crisis of communication arose from the dissonance between the reality created by the official language surrounding March 1968, and the reality experienced by many people, as this latter reality was silenced and repressed. Mistrust in language resulted in an immunitarian retreat from affective communication, which was replaced by impersonal communicative scripts. This communicative crisis widely prevented the March experiences from being conveyed in the cultural production of the time; nonetheless, I will try to retrace some of the immunitarian and counter-immunitarian strategies in literature, film, and retrospective accounts.

Experiences with and attitudes towards geriatric screening among older emergency department patients: a qualitative study

Background The patient perspective on the use of screening for high risks of adverse health outcomes in Emergency Department (ED) care is underexposed, although it is an important perspective influencing implementation in routine care. This study explores the experiences with, and attitudes towards geriatric screening in routine ED care among older people who visited the ED. Methods This was a qualitative study using individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted in older patients (≥70 years) who completed the ‘Acutely Presenting Older Patient’ screener while visiting the ED of a Dutch academic hospital. Purposive convenience sampling was used to select a heterogeneous sample of participants regarding age, disease severity and the result from screening. Transcripts were analyzed inductively using thematic analysis. Results After 13 interviews (7 women, median age 82 years), data saturation was reached. The participants had noticed little of the screening administration during triage and screening was considered as a normal part of ED care. Most participants believed that geriatric screening contributes to assessing older patients holistically, recognizing geriatric problems early and comforting patients with communication and attention. None of the participants had a negative attitude towards screening or thought that screening is discrimination on age. Care providers should communicate respectfully with frail older patients and involve them in decision-making. Conclusions Older patients experienced geriatric screening as a normal part of ED care and had predominantly positive attitudes towards its use in the ED. This qualitative study advocates for continuing the implementation of geriatric screening in routine ED practice.

Experiences with scans and scanxiety in people with advanced cancer: A qualitative study

Purpose: Scan-associated anxiety (‘scanxiety’) in people with advanced cancer is a common clinical problem. This study aims to explore the experiences of scans and scanxiety in people with advanced cancer, including their strategies to reduce scanxiety.Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with people with advanced cancers who had a computed tomography scan for monitoring of their cancer. Data was analysed with an interpretivist approach using framework analysis. Results: Interviews with 16 participants identified three key themes: the scan experience, the scanxiety experience and coping with scans. Scans and scanxiety were viewed as a routine and normal part of cancer care, though this was experienced differently by each person. Scanxiety often related to the scan result rather than the scan, and lead to psycho-cognitive manifestations. Adaptive coping strategies were often self-derived.Conclusion: People with advanced cancer experience scanxiety, but often accept scanxiety as a normal part of the cancer process. The findings fit within a transactional model of stress and coping, which influences the level of scanxiety for each individual. Quantitative research to determine the scope of scanxiety will be useful to develop formal approaches to reduce scanxiety.

87Sr/86Sr in Archeological and Paleobiological Research: A Perspective

The stable isotope ratio 87Sr/86Sr has been shown to have extraordinary potential for documenting the movement and life-histories of humans and other animals, both in history and prehistory. Thirty years of expanding applications has taken the method from a niche (if not fringe) approach to a normal part of archeological and paleobiological enquiry; indeed a “Golden Age.” The technique is inherently interdisciplinary, because in addition to those archeologists and paleobiologists wishing to apply it, most applications require informed input from ecologists, geochemists, and calcified tissue biologists. This perspective explores how such interdisciplinarity is both a strength and an impediment to further advancement.

13 Ways of Looking at Reproductive Lives

This review essay places The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy (2019), which historicizes miscarriage, in conversation with What God is Honored Here? (2019), a collection of essays by Native women and women of color about miscarriage and infant loss, to show how the history and current experience of miscarriage is complicated by the cultural forces that tell us how to feel about our reproductive experiences. However, it also argues that even if we are to contextualize miscarriage as a common, normal part of reproduction, as Lara Freidenfelds argues we should do, there is still an imperative to understand how, for Native women and women of color, the experience of miscarriage and infant loss can often be shaped by the racism of medical institutions and by a historical exclusion from health care that values their pregnancies and reproductive bodies.

What Is Birth Control?

How does birth control work? Most people who can become pregnant and give birth menstruate and ovulate. Menstruation is more commonly known as a “period” and refers to monthly vaginal bleeding that is a normal part of the menstrual cycle for most women. In...