Somatology Practices in Non-medical Aesthetic Treatments: Towards Development of Good Practice Guidelines for Somatology in South Africa: a Scoping Review Protocol

Background: The medical aesthetics industry is a very profitable and rapidly growing branch of medicine. Currently, somatologists or beauty therapists who either independently perform or assist medical directors in these aesthetic procedures, are not regulated by a professional body in most countries including South Africa. The absence of a prescribed scope of practice, attributed to absence of formal professional regulation, has resulted in an increase in anecdotal reports of complications and malpractice being referred to medical professionals. Since the mandate of regulatory bodies is to guide the professions and to protect patients and the public, currently, the absence of regulation in the somatology profession exposes patients/clients to unsafe practices predominately in the private sector. The objective of this scoping review is to map evidence on the somatology practices and regulations for non-medical aesthetic treatments. Methods: We will conduct a scoping review using peer reviewed journal articles that present literature on the practice of non-medical aesthetic treatments. Grey literature including media reports, and unpublished theses will be included. Electronic searches of databases and search engines such as Scopus, CINAHL, EBSCOhost, Health Source - Consumer Edition; Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, Open Dissertations, Google Scholar and MEDLINE will be undertaken to attain published articles and reports from all study designs. Duplicated documents will be deleted prior to title screening commencing. All retrieved literature will be exported into an Endnote X20 library. The quality of each publication will be appraised using the mixed methods appraisal tool (MMAT) – version 2018.Discussion: We will map the evidence of how non-medical treatments are commonly being performed by non-physicians and somatologists, including identifying which treatments and procedures are more at risk in resulting in adverse reactions if not administered ethically or correctly. Once summarised, the data could be used to develop relevant and current good practice guidelines that could be later integrated into a framework for somatologists performing non-medical aesthetics treatments in South Africa. Systematic review registration: Open Science Framework registration (https://osf.io/4fk8g/)

A Survey of the Information Needs of Four Professional Occupational Groups and a Survey of New Special Libraries

<p>This thesis consists of two surveys. The first attempts to identify the information needs of accountants, consulting engineers, lawyers and pharmacists in an effort to provide direction for the development of library and information services to those professions. A personal interview survey was conducted among a random sample of practitioners from each profession in the Wellington district. It was concluded that all four professions need continuing education opportunities to assist them to obtain improved access to both professional and general information. This need has arisen in part because librarians have not adequately marketed their services. It was further concluded that co-operation from each professional body, practitioners, society as a whole, and librarians is needed so that information centres to meet the needs of practitioners can be established. The second survey attempts to establish a methodology that can be used by librarians of special libraries in the conduct of user surveys which will provide them with evidence of the effect of their services. It also attempts to demonstrate the benefits found by staff in firms where special librarian positions had been established for less than five years. Self-completed questionnaires were distributed to professional staff in six Wellington firms. It was concluded that there are some basic patterns common to the development of new special libraries, and that the employment of a librarian can be of tangible benefit to a firm. Guidelines for those setting up new special libraries are suggested. It is further concluded that application of the user survey methodology established in this thesis would assist librarians of special libraries to assess their existing services, and to change emphases where necessary to meet expressed needs. It is also shown that librarians need to market their services, and understand their role in educating staff to exercise their individual and collective responsibilities as part of a firm's network of information resources.</p>

A Survey of the Information Needs of Four Professional Occupational Groups and a Survey of New Special Libraries

<p>This thesis consists of two surveys. The first attempts to identify the information needs of accountants, consulting engineers, lawyers and pharmacists in an effort to provide direction for the development of library and information services to those professions. A personal interview survey was conducted among a random sample of practitioners from each profession in the Wellington district. It was concluded that all four professions need continuing education opportunities to assist them to obtain improved access to both professional and general information. This need has arisen in part because librarians have not adequately marketed their services. It was further concluded that co-operation from each professional body, practitioners, society as a whole, and librarians is needed so that information centres to meet the needs of practitioners can be established. The second survey attempts to establish a methodology that can be used by librarians of special libraries in the conduct of user surveys which will provide them with evidence of the effect of their services. It also attempts to demonstrate the benefits found by staff in firms where special librarian positions had been established for less than five years. Self-completed questionnaires were distributed to professional staff in six Wellington firms. It was concluded that there are some basic patterns common to the development of new special libraries, and that the employment of a librarian can be of tangible benefit to a firm. Guidelines for those setting up new special libraries are suggested. It is further concluded that application of the user survey methodology established in this thesis would assist librarians of special libraries to assess their existing services, and to change emphases where necessary to meet expressed needs. It is also shown that librarians need to market their services, and understand their role in educating staff to exercise their individual and collective responsibilities as part of a firm's network of information resources.</p>

The business rescue practitioners’ professionalism: are we there yet?

Purpose and context: The purpose of the study was to explore the construction of professionalism in a multiple professional bodies (MPB) landscape in South Africa (SA) and demonstrate how this construction can be used to enhance a professional accreditation regime. Professional accreditation has become a pre-requisite for business rescue practitioners (BRPs). The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) licensing is linked to multiple professional bodies’ knowledge and practices but are not generic. This study was guided by one key question: How do PBs providing BRPs construct professionalism, and to what extent can the existing construction of professionalism facilitate the development of a professional accreditation regime? Research design and methods: A qualitative research design used required researchers to use four consecutive steps, namely (a) interviewing member services’ managers at four professional bodies (PBs); (b) systematic content analysis of codes of professional conduct and policy statements to identify constituent professionalism notions; (c) a systematic search of the literature to identify notions of professionalism mentioned in definitions and explanations of the construct; and (d) analysis of notions of professionalism using the constant comparison procedure to reveal critical themes. Results: A total of 90 separate notions of professionalism were identified in the 192 scholarly papers included in our study. The identified themes within business rescue practitioner (BRP) professionalism (emphasising relational aspects) point to practitioner dealings with (i) clients (business rescue candidates); (ii) government and others; (iii) the PB; and (iv) oneself to gain the essence of occupation. There is fragmentation between the constructed conceptualisations of professionalism among PBs, leading to an incoherent and inconsistent expert accreditation regime. Practical implications and value: The results from the indicated exploration steps were used to advance a programmatic framework to construct professionalism in an MPB landscape and set a future research agenda. The results also show that business rescue practitioners’ professionalism cannot be attained in a multi-professional body setting with an integrated professional accreditation framework.

The State of Business Rescue Practitioners Professional Accreditation

Business rescue practitioners (BRPs) are subject to many allegations of abuse and, therefore, professional accreditation has become a pre-requisite. The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) licensing is linked to multiple professional bodies’ knowledge and practices but is not generic. This study was guided by one key question: What is BRPs’ accreditation’s current state in a multiple professional body occupation? We used data mapped to scholarly and documented policy sources, categorized results from extensive reading, and integrated critical constructs (after the deconstruction of concepts) to yield a conceptual framework to develop a comprehensive understanding of professional accreditation. The results confirm the existence of a legal framework and institutional arrangements that are not coherently applied because of the absence of a professional accreditation framework (PAF). The proposed conceptual framework captures the concepts of the business rescue domain, professionalism, competency, accreditation, and definition of key terms to provide an interpretive approach to the BRPs’ accreditation reality resulting in a PAF based on the integration of BRP tasks and services and accreditation, competency, and professionalism.

From Critical Practice to Response

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously quasi-colonial, and decidedly elitist “professional” body in 1911, the CSAO has transformed itself in name and in nature into an increasingly class-conscious and intermittently militant Ontario Public Service Employees Union with current membership of approximately 180,000 including: clerical staff; community and social service workers; corrections officers; healthcare, transportation, and natural resource workers; as well as college academic and support staff employees. Relations with their employers have become increasingly adversarial and rarely greater than in the college sector. This paper explores this strike.

Converting Dissertation to Journal Article: Why and How?

Research work embodied in a master's dissertation remains confined to a limited domain of the researcher, supervisor/co-supervisor and university library. It is desirable that the dissertation material be published in a reputed journal for various reasons including career growth of the researcher, recognition by the professional body, dissemination to a wider audience etc. Writing a research article from a dissertation does not mean just to shorten the latter mechanically or a cut-paste method. For the novice writer, it is a daunting task, but rewarding experience as well, to convert a dissertation to an article. Advice and support of the supervisor and senior colleagues having good experience in research as well as publication should be taken who can navigate the publication process, following the guidelines of the target journal. This article presents a synthesis of guidelines and practices to be followed by the researchers to see that the outcomes of their incessant and tireless efforts in preparing the dissertations be documented through publishable articles.

Applying Quality Function Deployment to the Design of Engineering Programs: Approaches, Insights and Benefits

Tertiary programs in a discipline such as engineering must balance the competing needs and requirements of two key stakeholders: the university that designs and delivers the program, and the professional body that accredits the program. Program and curriculum design in universities is traditionally rather bottom-up in nature, with courses designed by individual academics, and assembled into cognate programs. Graduate qualities and accreditation criteria are typically mapped retrospectively onto the program structure. Designing such programs from the top down, driven by the needs of the university and the accreditation body, is a desirable goal. However, without proper support tools, such a top-down design process, balancing competing needs across multiple courses and year levels, is a complex and rarely smooth task. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was created, in the domain of product and system design, for this precise purpose. Treating the design of a tertiary program the same as the design of a system suggests that QFD, and the implementation tool known as the House of Quality (HoQ), should be ideally suited to this purpose. The aim of this paper is to show how QFD and the HoQ can be applied to the design of an engineering program, creating a specification that accurately reflects the voices of stakeholders, and serves as a benchmark for validating that these needs have been met in the implemented design.