John Brennan – författare

Every day, doctors are faced with the challenge of keeping the people they treat safe and free from harm. Patient safety is a relatively new field of study, but the field is expanding and there is now better understanding of what is needed to measure and achieve safety for patients. The Handbook of Patient Safety will empower doctors, nurses and other professionals to be able to develop safe clinical processes that allow proactive management and minimisation of risk, so that people are not harmed when they receive clinical care. It gives the rationale for patient safety, the theories behind the science of patient safety and then the practical methods that frontline staff can use on a daily basis to decrease harm.Pocket sized and practical, this handbook is the ideal guide to support frontline staff and trainees, as well as all allied professionals in the name of patient safety. It reflects the World Health Organization's Patient Safety Curriculum and is written by international experts in their field who have specialist interests and direct expertise in dealing with patient safety issues. This book will demystify what is often seen as a complex topic, helping doctors understand the methods needed to provide safe care.

This is a new book on the integrated management of vulvovaginal disease. The authors come from a variety of backgrounds - gynaecology, dermatology, pathology and psychology - and describe a multidisciplinary approach to these conditions. The book has the most complete classification of vulvovaginal disease published, based on the etiology of 275 conditions; coverage includes benign, malignant, and functional (including psychosexual) diseases. Each disease has a descriptive summary, pathological features, and treatment guidelines. The book is illustrated in full color throughout.

Received the ‘highly commended’ award by the Society for Educational Studies for books published in 2010.What is learned in universities today? Is it what students expect to learn? Is it what universities say they learn? How far do the answers to questions such as these differ according to what, where and how one studies?As higher education has expanded, it has diversified both in terms of its institutional forms and the characteristics of its students. However, what we do not know is the extent to which it has also diversified in terms of ‘what is learned’. In this book, the authors explore this question through the voices of higher education students, using empirical data from students taking 15 different courses at different universities across three subject areas – bioscience, business studies and sociology. The study concentrates on the students’ experiences, lives, hopes and aspirations while at university through data from interviews and questionnaires, and this is collated and assessed alongside the perspectives of their teachers and official data from the universities they attend.Through this study the authors provide insights into ‘what is really learned at university’ and how much it differs between individual students and the universities they attend. Notions of ‘best’ or ‘top’ universities are challenged throughout, and both diversities and commonalities of being a student are demonstrated. Posing important questions for higher education institutions about the experiences of their students and the consequences for graduates and society, this book is compelling reading for all those involved in higher education, providing conclusions which do not always follow conventional lines of thought about diversity and difference in UK higher education.

Received the ‘highly commended’ award by the Society for Educational Studies for books published in 2010.What is learned in universities today? Is it what students expect to learn? Is it what universities say they learn? How far do the answers to questions such as these differ according to what, where and how one studies?As higher education has expanded, it has diversified both in terms of its institutional forms and the characteristics of its students. However, what we do not know is the extent to which it has also diversified in terms of ‘what is learned’. In this book, the authors explore this question through the voices of higher education students, using empirical data from students taking 15 different courses at different universities across three subject areas – bioscience, business studies and sociology. The study concentrates on the students’ experiences, lives, hopes and aspirations while at university through data from interviews and questionnaires, and this is collated and assessed alongside the perspectives of their teachers and official data from the universities they attend.Through this study the authors provide insights into ‘what is really learned at university’ and how much it differs between individual students and the universities they attend. Notions of ‘best’ or ‘top’ universities are challenged throughout, and both diversities and commonalities of being a student are demonstrated. Posing important questions for higher education institutions about the experiences of their students and the consequences for graduates and society, this book is compelling reading for all those involved in higher education, providing conclusions which do not always follow conventional lines of thought about diversity and difference in UK higher education.

Aims to rescue a usable interpretation of the vocational theory in higher education by describing the historical and policy frameworks of the debate.

Rural Scotland is a charged landscape, alive with history, soaked in myth and often rather sublime. For those of us living an urban existence, the countryside is a retreat for refuge and decompression, but it is also a place where infrastructures strain to reach and in which livings must be made. The countryside is resistant to easy explanation and is thus vulnerable to stereotyping. The nine building stories told in this book show how rural households and communities define themselves, and the role architecture plays in this.Illustrated with beautiful photography and drawings, the projects, from affordable housing on the islands to exquisite renovations of traditional agricultural stock, and all recognised by the Saltire Society’s Housing Design Awards, are visually rich both in themselves and the contexts in which they sit. The houses are set firmly within historic, economic and social contexts and are much more than bolt holes from the urban. Some of our buildings are active participants in rural regeneration and others reflect, in a profound way, what authenticity really means in the countryside. Like architecture everywhere, they present a mirror to a society’s preoccupations and values. However, this is a book too about architecture’s capacity to inspire and endlessly delight.

The book draws on the 2007 Changing Academic Profession international survey in order to document the personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity/commitment and job satisfaction of academics in 14 countries with different levels of economic and social development and different higher education systems. With nearly 26,000 academics surveyed in 19 countries (of which 14 are reporting their results in this volume), the empirical basis of the book is the most up-to-date and far-reaching in the area.With major changes taking place both in the local and global contexts of higher education and in the working conditions within individual universities, as exemplified by increasing managerialism and performance-based funding, it is important to consider the impact of these changes on the profiles and working lives of the academic profession across different countries. But it is also important to look at the ways in which the faculty’s changing profile impacts on the organisation and management of universities and on the delivery of their central functions.Although not always obvious in the short-term, academic work and its conditions attract, incorporate and promote different types of individuals who, in turn, exert considerable influence on the nature of academic work, higher education institutions and, potentially, society. As faculty members are central to the teaching, research and service enterprise activities of higher education, it is important to understand their personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity and commitment, and job satisfaction. These are central for understanding the academic profession in generaland, in particular, the factors affecting their involvement and productivity in the work of their institutions. These are a complex result of a mixture of contextual factors (e.g. the status and regulatory framework of the higher education system, the features and atmosphere of the particular institution) and personal factors (e.g. gender, educational attainment, family background, attitudes to work and broader social values).This book examines the different situations facing the academic profession in individual countries and provides comparative studies of country differences.

The book draws on the 2007 Changing Academic Profession international survey in order to document the personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity/commitment and job satisfaction of academics in 14 countries with different levels of economic and social development and different higher education systems.

The last decade has marked European higher education with particular dynamics. Today, after a decade of «connected» policy, national systems look much more convergent but new questions and dilemmas are emerging: about the nature and quality of higher education, about the real impact of recent reforms in different countries, and about higher education's future. The book examines the impact of Europe-wide and global developments on national higher education systems. The authors try in particular to place upfront issues of convergence and diversity, of equity and of the relationship between centres and peripheries in higher education. The book is an outcome of research collaboration between six institutes which developed a EuroHESC research proposal on the consequences of expanded and differentiated higher education systems.

This book sets out to understand the significance of geographical context – place – for universities in the globalised setting of the twenty-first century.

This book sets out to understand the significance of geographical context – place – for universities in the globalised setting of the twenty-first century.