As mental health nursing roles expand, is education expanding mental health nurses? an emotionally intelligent view towards preparation for psychological therapies and relatedness Mental health nurses (MHN) in the UK currently occupy a challenging position. This positioning is one that offers a view of expanding roles and responsibilities in both mental health act legislation and the delivery of psychological therapies, while simultaneously generic pre‐registration training is being considered. Clearly, the view from this position, although not without challenge and internal discipline (...) dispute, can also offer growing professional prestige, influence and respect from other health disciplines, as well as the wider public. Conversely, if the training, education and strategic enactment for new MHN roles is formulated and delivered from predominantly non‐MHN axiomatic and epistemological stances, MHN identity can be seriously and potentially permanently diminished. This paper offers the construct of emotional intelligence as a framework to respond to these future challenges through making individual MHN enablement a primacy. This enablement of MHNs through enhanced emotional intelligence competencies is argued as requiring priority over the standard approach of enhancing strategies alone. (shrink)

Recoverin is a 23 kDa Ca2+binding protein that has been detected primarily in vertebrate photoreceptors. The role of recoverin in phototransduction has been investigated using a variety of biochemical methods. Initial reports suggesting that recoverin regulates photoreceptor guanylyl cyclase have not been confirmed. Instead, recoverin appears to determine the lifetime of lightstimulated phosphodiesterase activity, perhaps by regulating rhodopsin phosphorylation. Retinal recoverin is heterogeneously fatty acylated at its ammo-terminus. The amino-terminal fatty acid appears to be involved in the interaction of recoverin (...) with photoreceptor membranes. (shrink)

Recoverin is a Ca2+-binding protein found primarily in vertebrate photoreceptors. The proposed physiological function of recoverin is based on the finding that recoverin inhibits light-stimulated phosphorylation of rhodopsin. Recoverin interacts with rod outer segment membranes in a Ca2+-dependent manner. This interaction requires N-terminal acylation of recoverin. Four types of fatty acids have been detected on the N-terminus of recoverin, but the functional significance of this heterogeneous acylation is not yet clear.

There is a wide variety of ethical arguments for public financing of health care that share a common structure built on a series of four logically related propositions regarding: the ultimate purpose of a human life or human society; the role of health and its distribution in society in advancing this ultimate purpose; the role of access to or utilisation of health care in maintaining or improving the desired level and distribution of health among members of society, and the role (...) of public financing in ensuring the ethically justified access to and utilisation of health care by members of society. This paper argues that economics has much to contribute to the development of the ethical foundations for publicly financed health care. It focuses in particular on recent economic work to clarify the concepts of access and need and their role in analyses of the just distribution of health care resources, and on the importance of economic analysis of health care and health care insurance markets in demonstrating why public financing is necessary to achieve broad access to and utilisation of health care services. (shrink)

The Hearts and Minds of Ghana project improves the lives of those who are less fortunate and have few resources. Providing clear goals for the mission, devising prior guidelines for patient selection and treatment, achieving a better understanding of local culture and expectations, and good team work, facilitate making better ethical decisions, but doesn’t make them less difficult.

Our intention in this brief article is to explore the idea of what it means to be a 'good' manager. We discuss some of the dilemmas faced by managers seeking to define their role performance in terms additional to those of organizational effectiveness and efficiency. To do this, we describe critical aspects of the contemporary context. We propose that the changes we are experiencing give organiza tions a central role in how people define their personal and social well-being. Our contention (...) is that in this central role organizations will be faced with situations requiring solutions of fundamental value conflicts. This means that the nature of the question as to what it means to be a 'good' manager will become both increasingly important and increasingly complex. Further, the exploration of the issue can no longer be limited to operational efficiency, but must include the manager's capacity to conceptualise both his own role and that of the organization within the broader socio-environmental context. We contribute to the dialogue by proposing that being 'good' will involve on the part of the manager an awareness of the values involved in a decision and an alignment of action with what Erich Fromm has called 'life-giving' values. This approach in no way diminishes the requirement that a manager be competent in the fullest sense of the word; it requires, however, a deeper understanding of competence and of the commitment a manager will need to act justly, fairly and with care. (shrink)

The perennial issue of the distinctiveness of the mental health nurse (MHN) is once again to the fore. Previous attempts to resolve this apparent identity crisis in the discipline have included proposals for new models, new research and new educational preparation as well as new alliances, and new ways of practising. Now the politically driven concept of the generic nurse is gaining enough momentum to potentially end the discussion once and for all. This paper takes a postmodernist approach to MHN (...) identity that questions the requirement for MHNs to articulate their distinctiveness, and offers alternative constructions of this identity to those promulgated by policy makers and by other health disciplines. (shrink)