Owen Bodger

Swansea University | SWAN · Institute of Life Science "ILS"

Retrieval practice is an evidence‐based approach to teaching; here, we evaluate the use of PeerWise for embedding retrieval practice into summative assessment. PeerWise allows anonymous authoring, sharing, answering, rating, and feedback on peer‐authored multiple choice questions. PeerWise was embedded as a summative assessment in a large first‐yea...

Introduction: Since 2012, the Damage Control Orthopaedic Trauma Skills course (DCOTS) has trained more than 250 surgeons in the principles and practice of damage control orthopaedics and early appropriate care. This Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) course takes place at the RCS England Partner cadaver laboratory at Brighton and S...

This article gives an insight into the experience of teaching statistics to undergraduate life science students without a significant mathematical component. More specifically, we discuss the introductory session all students will attend in which we encourage students to discover for themselves the process underlying hypothesis testing and give mea...

Background: Hemolysis testing of new devices to treat heart failure is a regulatory requirement. The ASTM F1841-97 standard for hemolysis testing was developed for continuous flow pumps and does not specify test rig design. When research groups use different methodologies, results are difficult to compare. Pulsatile flow pump rigs require complian...

Retrieval practice is an evidence-based approach to teaching; here we evaluate the use of PeerWise for embedding retrieval practice into summative assessment. PeerWise allows anonymous authoring, sharing, answering, rating and feedback on peer-authored multiple-choice questions. PeerWise was embedded as a summative assessment in a large first-year...

Aims Guidelines recommend anticoagulation (AC) in atrial fibrillation (AF) to reduce stroke and systemic embolism (SSE) risk; however, implementation has been slow across many populations. This study aimed to quantify the potential impact of changing prevalence of AF, associated risk, and AC prescribing on SSE hospitalizations and death. Methods a...

Background People with cystic fibrosis (CF) are prone to bacterial respiratory infections; these are often antibiotic resistant, are difficult to treat, and impact on the quality of life and lung function. The upper respiratory tract can act as a reservoir for these pathogens, and as part of clinical care, sinus rinses are used to alleviate symptom...

Aims We introduced a self-care pathway for minimally displaced distal radius fractures, which involved the patient being discharged from a Virtual Fracture Clinic (VFC) without a physical review and being provided with written instructions on how to remove their own cast or splint at home, plus advice on exercises and return to function. Methods A...

Introduction Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) and the Colorectal Physiology and Operative Severity Score (CR-POSSUM) are increasingly used in colorectal surgical practice to risk-stratify patients preoperatively and for planning level 2 HDU or ITU admission. This study aims to generate a simple, objective pre-operative risk assessment model...

Abstract Background Open lower limb fractures are serious injuries requiring combined ortho-plastic surgery and have significantly worse outcomes than similar closed fractures. There is little objective published data to determine which functional outcome measures best reflect progress or completeness of physical recovery. Our hypothesis was that o...

Introduction Anticoagulation (AC) reduces the risk of stroke and systemic embolism (SSE) in patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF). However, the association between changes in AF prevalence, risk factors for SSE, uptake of AC and incidence of SSE has not been documented specifically in these patients within a national population. Purpose Identifyi...

Sirs, Authors’ Reply to the Response to Our Simulation Study: Catastrophic Haemorrhage and TQs Many thanks for reading our article and for taking the time to provide a response. Indeed, we are delighted that the article has encouraged discussion. Without question, the world-wide trauma care community is indebted to those who have provided life-s...

Staphylococcus epidermidis is found naturally on the skin but is a common cause of persistent orthopaedic device-related infections (ODRIs). This study used a pan-genome and gene-by-gene approach to analyse the clonality of whole genome sequences (WGS) of 115 S. epidermidis isolates from 55 patients with persistent ODRIs. Analysis of the 522 gene c...

Background Poor mental health and emotional well-being can negatively impact ability to engage in healthy lifestyle behavior change. Health care staff have higher rates of sickness and absence than other public sector staff, which has implications at both individual and societal levels. Individual efforts to self-manage health and well-being which...

Aims NeoSCOPE is a trial of two different neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy regimens for resectable oesophageal cancer and was the first multicentre trial in the UK to incorporate four-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) into radiotherapy planning. Despite 4D-CT being increasingly accepted as a standard of care for lower third and junctional oesoph...

Introduction Catastrophic hemorrhage is the leading cause of preventable trauma deaths in the military and civilian populations. The use of tourniquets by first responders (medical and nonmedically trained) is supported and has the potential to save lives if applied correctly. Aims We sought to examine the use of 5 tourniquets: 1 improvised and 4...

BACKGROUND Open lower limb fractures are serious, potentially life-changing injuriesrequiring combined ortho-plastic surgery and have significantly worse outcomes than similar closed fractures. There is little objective published data to determine which functional outcome measures best reflect progress or completeness of physical recovery. Our hypo...

BACKGROUND Poor mental health and emotional well-being can negatively impact ability to engage in healthy lifestyle behavior change. Health care staff have higher rates of sickness and absence than other public sector staff, which has implications at both individual and societal levels. Individual efforts to self-manage health and well-being which...

The flipped classroom is a relatively new active learning pedagogical intervention, gaining popularity as a blended learning methodology. The flipped classroom comprises two distinct parts, directed learning carried out at the student's own pace away from the classroom and an interactive, class‐based activity encouraging problem‐solving and experie...

Background: Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) offer live-saving therapy to transplant-ineligible heart failure patients. A major limitation of the technology includes pump thrombosis, bleeding, and recurrent infection that prove difficult to predict from in vivo animal testing. Shear stress introduced by the LVAD affects more than just haemo...

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed in men worldwide; however, few patients are affected by clinically significant disease within their lifetime. Unfortunately, the means to discriminate between patients with indolent disease and those who progress to aggressive prostate cancer is currently unavailable, resulting in over-trea...

The Phosphatidylinositol glycan class A (PIG-A) gene mutation assay phenotypically measures erythrocyte mutations, assessed here for their correlation to neoplastic progression in the gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD)-Barrett’s metaplasia (BM)-oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) model. Endoscopy patients underwent venipuncture and erythrocytes...

Nine healthy individuals with a mean ± SD BMI of 22.0 ± 0.7 kg/m² and age of 20 ± 0.2 years, participated in this single-blind randomised, crossover trial investigating the impact of ingesting two different honeys (1) Tropical Forest Honey (TFH) and (2) Manuka Honey; strength 12+ (MAN) on circulating levels of plasma interferon gamma following ex-v...

Background Achilles tendinopathy is a common pathology that is considered difficult to treat. At a time of austerity in the NHS it is essential to have carefully designed pathways that are monitored in terms of cost and effectiveness. However, a paucity of evidence exists for what the “best value” dedicated “joined up” pathway of care is for this d...

Introduction: Hand-held imaging devices are widely used in clinical practice and are a useful tool. There is no published review examining the diagnostic parameters achieved with these devices in clinical practice. Methods: We searched three online medical literature databases (PubMed, Embase and Medline) for all literature published up until Janua...

Background: Chronic pain is associated with psychological distress, most commonly manifested as anxiety and/or depression. Methods: In order to investigate the effect of such distress on outcome from knee arthroplasty, we prospectively investigated the anxiety and depression levels of 104 patients undergoing a total of 107 primary knee arthropla...

Introduction: The inflammatory response is known to have an important role in tumourigenesis and the response to treatment. Previous studies have demonstrated that inflammatory cell ratios such as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) can predict survival and recurrence following surgery for various cancers. The objective of this study was to d...

Background: As ultrasound offers students an opportunity to study anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology actively, we used hand-held ultrasound (HHU) devices to augment current teaching of cardiac murmurs and pathology. Methods: Three types of teaching sessions (of different duration) were explored: 1) compulsory teaching on cardiac murmurs (n=40...

Six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate-2 (STEAP2) expression is increased in prostate cancer when compared to normal prostate, suggesting STEAP2 may drive prostate cancer progression. This study aimed to establish the functional role of STEAP2 in prostate tumourigenesis and evaluate if its knockdown resulted in reduced invasive potent...

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: The primary objective of this review is to assess whether mechanical assist devices improve survival in individuals with acute cardiogenic shock.

Background: Mental workload is an abstract concept that perceives cognition as the brain having a small and finite capacity to process information, with high levels of workload associated with poor performance and error. While an individual may be able to complete two different tasks individually, a combination of tasks may lead to cognitive overl...

Pollination is a key ecosystem service for agriculture and wider ecosystem function. However, most pollination studies focus on Hymenoptera, with hoverflies (Syrphidae) frequently treated as a single functional group. We tested this assumption by investigating pollen carried by eleven species of hoverfly in five genera, Cheilosia, Eristalis, Rhingi...

Ventricular assist devices (VADs) are a life-saving form of mechanical circulatory support in heart failure patients. However, VADs have not yet reached their full potential due to the associated side effects (thrombosis, bleeding, infection) related to the activation and damage of blood cells and proteins caused by mechanical stress and foreign ma...

Pollination by insects is a key ecosystem service and important to wider ecosystem function. Most species‐level pollination networks studied have a generalised structure, with plants having several potential pollinators, and pollinators in turn visiting a number of different plant species. This is in apparent contrast to a plant's need for efficien...

Background Ultrasound imaging devices are becoming popular in clinical and teaching settings, but there is no systematic information on their use in medical education. We conducted a systematic review of hand-held ultrasound (HHU) devices in undergraduate medical education to delineate their role, significance, and limitations. Methods We searched...

A: Sensitivity for LV dysfunction across all four papers, displaying considerable heterogeneity of data. B: Specificity for LV dysfunction across all five papers, displaying considerable heterogeneity of data. C: Diagnostic OR for LV dysfunction across all five papers, displaying considerable heterogeneity of data. LV: left ventricular, OR: odds ra...

The SROC curve showing the diagnostic accuracy for detection of LV dysfunction. SROC: summary receiver operating characteristic. AUC: area under curve, SE: standard error.

Introduction Improving our mechanisms of risk stratification of patients with Barrett’s oesophagus (BO) requires easily analysable, cheap and reproducable biomarkers. The PigA mutant phenotype assay is a novel flow cytometric analysis, which can be undertaken using a fingerprick test. The PigA gene codes for GPI-anchors, which tether proteins to th...

Background Whether to subject comatose survivors of cardiac arrest to cardiac catheterisation is a difficult question. ST-segment elevation (STE) is absent in 20% of proven STEMIs while concerns about long-term outcomes can inhibit invasive strategies. Methods We identified in the cath lab databases of the 2 Welsh tertiary centres those patients wh...

RNA interference (RNAi) methods for insects are often limited by problems with double-stranded (ds) RNA delivery, which restricts reverse genetics studies and the development of RNAi-based biocides. We therefore delegated to insect symbiotic bacteria the task of: (i) constitutive dsRNA synthesis and (ii) trauma-free delivery. RNaseIII-deficient, ds...

Background Oesophageal adenocarcinoma has one of the worst prognoses of any malignancy. Conventional surveillance of its precursor condition (Barrett's oesophagus) entails endoscopy every 2 years, but it still misses many cancers. Thus, identifying biomarkers to detect this cancer at an early stage is of paramount importance. The PIGA gene mutation...

Background Infectious endocardits (IE) is a rare condition associated with high morbidity and mortality. IE develops as a result of a complex interaction between the vascular endothelium, haemostatic mechanisms, the immune system and exposure to the causative microorganism. Historically cardiologists have utilised prophylactic antibiotics to cover...

The Parkland formula for maintenance and resuscitation fluid requirements in the first 24 hours after pediatric burns is widely used, but calculation errors frequently occur.Two different novel aids to calculation, a dedicated electronic device and a mechanical disc calculator, are described and compared with the conventional method of calculation...

Patient confidentiality and new technologies in burn care We agree with the general concerns raised by Dunne and Rawlins [1] regarding data confidentiality and the use of smartphone cameras in the clinical environment. The apps which we evaluated [2] are simple calculators, requiring input data of age, body weight, burn surface area and time of inj...

Objective To investigate whether the link between epilepsy and deprivation is due to factors associated with deprivation (social causation) or factors associated with a diagnosis of epilepsy (social drift).Methods We reviewed electronic primary health care records from 2004 to 2010, identifying prevalent and incident cases of epilepsy and recording...

Although inequalities in health and socioeconomic status have an important influence on childhood educational performance, the interactions between these multiple factors relating to variation in educational outcomes at micro-level is unknown, and how to evaluate the many possible interactions of these factors is not well established. This paper ai...

Genetic toxicology data have traditionally been employed for qualitative, rather than quantitative evaluations of hazard. As a continuation of our earlier report that analyzed ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) and methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) dose–response data (Gollapudi et al., 2013), here we present analyses of 1-ethyl-1-nitrosourea (ENU) and 1-meth...

Aims To investigate the relationship between socioeconomic deprivation, epilepsy prevalence and incidence. Method: We reviewed electronic primary health care records in Wales from 2004 to 2010 identifying prevalent and incident cases of epilepsy and recording linked deprivation scores. Logistic and Poisson regression models were used to calculate o...

The tropical seascape provides food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of people, but the support of key habitats to this supply remains ill appreciated. For fisheries and conservation management actions to help promote resilient ecosystems, sustainable livelihoods, and food supply, knowledge is required about the habitats that help support fi...

We describe the first in vitro model of dormancy in Staphylococcus aureus, showing that cells are generated which can be resuscitated by addition of spent medium supernatant taken from cultures of the same organism. Over 30 days, culturable counts in dormant cultures of S. aureus SH1000 fell from 10(6)-10(7) cfu/ml to <10 cfu/ml as measured by the...

Populations may potentially respond to climate change in various ways including moving to new areas or alternatively staying where they are and adapting as conditions shift. Traditional laboratory and mesocosm experiments last days to weeks and thus only give a limited picture of thermal adaptation, whereas ocean warming occurring over decades allo...

We conducted a randomised, blinded study to compare the accuracy and perceived usability of two smartphone apps (uBurn(©) and MerseyBurns(©)) and a general purpose electronic calculator for calculating fluid requirements using the Parkland formula. Bespoke software randomly generated simulated clinical data; randomly allocated the sequence of calcu...

Prostate cancer is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer worldwide and is the sixth leading cause of cancer deaths in men, yet it varies greatly in its aggressiveness. Currently, it is not possible to adequately differentiate between patients whose tumors will remain indolent and those patients whose disease will disease progress, resulting i...

We performed a randomised study to compare the accuracy and speed of three different techniques (pen and paper, electronic calculator and a novel graphic device: 'nomogram') for calculation of resuscitation fluid requirements for adults in the first 24 h of burn injury, based on the Parkland Formula. We also assessed acceptability of each technique...

Differential diagnosis of Achilles pathology is demanding. This study evaluates the diagnostic accuracy of clinical tests identified for a chronic mid body Achilles tendinopathy. Ultrasound scanning provides the reference standard. Twenty-one participants with, and without, an Achilles tendinopathy, had an ultrasound scan followed immediately by th...

CONTEXTInadequate fluid resuscitation of acute burns may result in hypovolaemic shock. Excessive fluid resuscitation may result in fluid overload. A nomogram which uses the popular Parkland formula and 4-2-1' regime has been recently described to facilitate the calculation of fluid requirements in children during the first 24h following burn injury...

We conducted a randomised controlled trial to determine whether active intense pulsed light (IPL) is an effective treatment for patients with chronic mid-body Achilles tendinopathy. A total of 47 patients were randomly assigned to three weekly therapeutic or placebo IPL treatments. The primary outcome measure was the Victorian Institute of Sport As...

Multiple-choice question (MCQ) examinations are increasingly used as the assessment method of theoretical knowledge in large class-size modules in many life science degrees. MCQ-tests can be used to objectively measure factual knowledge, ability and high-level learning outcomes, but may also introduce gender bias in performance dependent on topic,...