Consensus guidelines on the communication of unexpected news via ultrasound

UK sonographers and ultrasound practitioners working in obstetric ultrasound settings deliver unexpected findings to expectant parents as standard. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding the specific words, phrases and behaviours that represent best practice when communicating these findings. The current document contains consensus guidelines for news delivery which were initially generated during a one-day workshop attended by 28 stakeholders including interdisciplinary healthcare professionals, policy experts, representatives from third-sector organisations, lay experts and academic researchers. The draft guidelines were then circulated among the wider reading group which included the initial workshop attendees and an additional 11 contributors. Feedback was incorporated into the document until consensus was reached. The guidelines provide specific suggestions for words and phrases which sonographers and ultrasound practitioners can use in various news delivery scenarios which may arise in Early Pregnancy Unit (EPU) and Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (FASP) settings

The Limits of Rational Choice: New Institutionalism in the Test Bed of Central Banking Politics in Australia

This paper tests the explanatory capacities of different versions of new institutionalism by examining the Australian case of a general transition in central banking practice and monetary politics: namely, the increased emphasis on low inflation and central bank independence. Standard versions of rational choice institutionalism largely dominate the literature on the politics of central banking, but this approach (here termed RC1) fails to account for Australian empirics. RC1 has a tendency to establish actor preferences exogenously to the analysis; actors' motives are also assumed a priori; actor's preferences are depicted in relatively static, ahistorical terms. And there is the tendency, even a methodological requirement, to assume relatively simple motives and preference sets among actors, in part because of the game theoretic nature of RC1 reasoning. It is possible to build a more accurate rational choice model by re-specifying and essentially updating the context, incentives and choice sets that have driven rational choice in this case. Enter RC2. However, this move subtly introduces methodological shifts and new theoretical challenges. By contrast, historical institutionalism uses an inductive methodology. Compared with deduction, it is arguably better able to deal with complexity and nuance. It also utilises a dynamic, historical approach, and specifies (dynamically) endogenous preference formation by interpretive actors. Historical institutionalism is also able to more easily incorporate a wider set of key explanatory variables and incorporate wider social aggregates. Hence, it is argued that historical institutionalism is the preferred explanatory theory and methodology in this case