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Addressing change in physiotherapy education in South Africa.

ABSTRACT: Background:Recent demands for the decolonisation of curriculum in South Africa present challenges to students, academics and other stakeholders. This resulted in tensions in tertiary institutions, cumulating in student-led protests. The authors hypothesised that the lack of shared understanding of what this unexplored process may entail contributed to the dilemma. Objective:The aim of this opinion article is to highlight some of the possible contributors to the uncertainties in addressing this critical issue, especially as it relates to the demands for change in physiotherapy education. Method:To formulate our opinion, the authors reviewed literature relating to transformation in education in South Africa generally, and physiotherapy education specifically. Results:While there is an opportunity to address the demand for change in physiotherapy education in South Africa, there is the possibility that the use of words, such as transformation, decolonisation and decoloniality, present different connotations to students and academics. Conclusion:It is of vital importance to create formal discourse which includes students, academics and other stakeholders that will facilitate shared understanding about what the previously unexplored and unmapped processes of engagement entail. The change process in physiotherapy education is envisaged to be a partnership between students and academic staff having common understanding about the processes and responsibilities, and must be addressed comprehensively. Clinical implications:Aligning the change process in physiotherapy education with the decolonisation agenda will strengthen the South African health care system by ensuring that physiotherapy students are adequately prepared to provide service to patients within a context that acknowledges the uniqueness of South African communities.

SUBMITTER: Amosun SL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6092759 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Addressing change in physiotherapy education in South Africa.

Amosun Seyi L SL Maart Soraya S Naidoo Niri N

The South African journal of physiotherapy 20180327 1

<h4>Background</h4>Recent demands for the decolonisation of curriculum in South Africa present challenges to students, academics and other stakeholders. This resulted in tensions in tertiary institutions, cumulating in student-led protests. The authors hypothesised that the lack of shared understanding of what this unexplored process may entail contributed to the dilemma.<h4>Objective</h4>The aim of this opinion article is to highlight some of the possible contributors to the uncertainties in ad ...[more]

PMID: 30135922

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Project description:The MRC/Wits University Agincourt research centre, part of the INDEPTH Network, has documented mortality in a defined population in the rural northeast of South Africa for 20 years (1992-2011) using long-term health and socio-demographic surveillance. Detail on the unfolding, at times unpredicted, mortality pattern has been published. This experience is reviewed here and updated using more recent data.To present a review and summary of mortality patterns across all age-sex groups in the Agincourt sub-district population for the period 1992-2011 as a comprehensive basis for public health action.Vital events in the Agincourt population have been updated in annual surveys undertaken since 1992. All deaths have been rigorously recorded and followed by verbal autopsy interviews. Responses to questions from these interviews have been processed retrospectively using the WHO 2012 verbal autopsy standard and the InterVA-4 model for assigning causes of death in a standardised manner.Between 1992 and 2011, a total of 12,209 deaths were registered over 1,436,195 person-years of follow-up, giving a crude mortality rate of 8.5 per 1,000 person-years. During the 20-year period, the population experienced a major HIV epidemic, which resulted in more than doubling of overall mortality for an extended period. Recent years show signs of declining mortality, but levels remain above the 1992 baseline recorded using the surveillance system.The Agincourt population has experienced a major mortality shock over the past two decades from which it will take time to recover. The basic epidemic patterns are consistent with generalised mortality patterns observed in South Africa as a whole, but the detailed individual surveillance behind these analyses allows finer-grained analyses of specific causes, age-related risks, and trends over time. These demonstrate the complex, somewhat unpredicted course of mortality transition over the years since the dawn of South Africa's democratic era in 1994.

Project description:Background. The bacterial foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is a common cause of acute gastroenteritis and is also associated with the postinfectious neuropathies, Guillain-Barré and Miller Fisher syndromes. This study described the use of multilocus sequence typing and DNA microarrays to examine the genetic content of a collection of South African C. jejuni strains, recovered from patients with enteritis, Guillain-Barré or Miller Fisher syndromes. Methodology/Principal Findings. The comparative genomic analysis by using multilocus sequence typing and DNA microarrays demonstrated that the South African strains with Penner heat-stable (HS) serotype HS:41 were clearly distinct from the other South African strains. Further analysis of the DNA microarray data demonstrated that the serotype HS:41 strains from South African GBS and enteritis patients are highly similar in gene content. Interestingly, the South African HS:41 strains were distinct in gene content when compared to serotype HS:41 strains from other geographical locations due to the presence of genomic islands, referred to as Campylobacter jejuni integrated elements. Only the genomic integrated element CJIE1, a Campylobacter Mu-like prophage, was present in the South African HS:41 strains whereas absent in the closely-related HS:41 strains from Mexico. A more distantly-related HS:41 strain from Canada possessed both genomic integrated elements CJIE1 and CJIE2. Conclusion/Significance. These findings demonstrated that these C. jejuni integrated elements may contribute to the differentiation of closely-related C. jejuni strains. In addition, the presence of bacteriophage-related genes in CJIE1 may probably contribute to increasing the genomic diversity of these C. jejuni strains. This comparative genomic analysis of the foodborne pathogen C. jejuni provides fundamental information that potentially could lead to improved methods for analyzing the epidemiology of disease outbreaks and their sources. Keywords: comparative genomic indexing analysis

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Addressing change in physiotherapy education in South Africa.

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Addressing change in physiotherapy education in South Africa.

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