The Relevance of Social Science in Paediatrics

1. The Relevance of Social Science in Paediatrics Wolfgang Markham School of Health and Social Studies Wolfgang.Markham@warwick.ac.uk

2. PORTFOLIO CASES • Aim: to link the objectives of the course with clinical experience • To facilitate learning and teaching and permit formative assessment • Draw on knowledge and experience gathered in phase 1 in order to make sense of clinical practice in phase 2

3. SOCIAL SCIENCE PORTFOLIO PRESENTATIONS • Child Health module toolkit • Referenced list of abstracts • A glossary of useful terms or concepts • Links to phase 1 modules • An example of two ‘excellent’ child health portfolio cases

4. Patient choice • You have completely free reign to choose any patient you like providing that you are the only person to choose this patient • Try to pick a patient who you can have either a long conversation with and thus get to know him or her or ideally you have seen or more than one occasion. Try to follow up after your initial consultation if you can. • The patient could come from an affluent family and may well live with both biological parents. • If the patient mentions an organisation e.g. Aquarius find out what the organisation does and why the patient uses the organisation

5. Portfolio • Please complete all the sections up to Impact on your learning. Please do not include the patients name. Feel free to use bullet points and try to refrain from using abbreviations and acronyms • History-The history need not focus too much on medication more on how long child has encountered problems and what they have been • Management -Try to get information about how well the child’s condition is managed. Factors that facilitate good management factors that inhibit good management rather than drug and treatment regimes

6. Portfolio • Evidence based - Pick something that has a psychosocial slant rather than epidemiological or pathophysiology slant. • A good tip for a short cut literature search is to identify the top journals in any particular field by going into the Web of Knowledge database which can be found under electronic databases in the library catalogue and finding out which journals have the highest impact factor for the subject matter. Examples of particularly good journals are Social Science and Medicine and Addiction, Health Psychology, BMJ, Lancet. If the library subscribes to the electronic version of the journal then go to the journal and type in the condition in the search term e.g. Overdose and scroll down through the papers it identifies. • Try to include references that were published in the 21st century if you can.

7. Portfolio • Evidence based – Try to include references that were published in the 21st century if you can • Referencing university lectures is not a good idea e.g. from Lifespan, Diversity, Health Psychology, Health in the Community or other Phase 1 modules. • Commentary- Please avoid focussing on epidemiology and health care planning if you can unless you take psychosocial stance on the issue.

8. Presentation • Please prepare a power point presentation that you will talk to for 10 minutes with 5 minutes for questions from the floor. Please bring your presentation with you on a memory stick. • Please do not follow the format of the portfolio. We want you to focus on the patient from the perspective of the patient. • Please do not focus on the condition rather than your patient and speak generally about the condition. Your colleagues and I can always read about the condition ourselves at a later stage.

9. Presentation • We would like you to try and make your patient come alive so that we have an in depth understanding of how the condition is influenced by the person’s life and influences the person’s life. If you quote papers then highlight how these papers are related to your patient. Are there reasons for the incongruence between your patients experiences and the issues highlighted in the literature • Be prepared to answer questions on any aspect of your presentation. If you mention an organisation then please be prepared to answer questions on its function. • You may be asked what you have learnt from a psychosocial perspective having interacted with your patient and written your portfolio and done your presentation. Not being able to answer this question is at best unconvincing.

10. Criteria for assessing child health portfolios and presentationsUnsatisfactory • Failure to complete all the sections of the portfolio up to and including Impact on your Learning • Failure to provide an answer in the evidence based section that has a focus on some psychological or social aspect related to the patient’s condition • Focus entirely on the condition generally without consideration of how patient’s condition/illness/circumstances impacts on her/his social environment and/or how her/his social environment impacts on how her/his condition/illness is managed.

11. Criteria for assessing child health portfolios and presentationsExcellent • Clear, consistent insightful and coherent picture of how the patient’s condition/illness/circumstances impacts on her/his social environment and/or how her/his social environment impacts on how her/his condition/illness is managed. In particular considers impact on daily living and social relationships • Careful consideration of wider environment outside of immediate family e.g. school, parental employment or the roles of community and voluntary organisations • Clear picture of the patient’s mental and emotional well-being • Evaluates the patient’s situation by focusing on current and future contexts