Rugby World Cup at Marjon

The University of St Mark & St John welcomed the Namibian Rugby World Cup squad to use our state of the art facilities as their team base for their games at Exeter Chiefs Sandy Park.

Whilst the team used our world class Sports Science lab facilities, it also gave our BSc Sports Therapy students an excellent opportunity to work with International Athletes. Soft Tissue treatments were offered to the players as part of their programme during the 2 weeks based down in Plymouth which provided our students with a real buzz and excitement as well as a good work out!

Check out our quick video of our students working with the players and the official University of St Mark & St John Press Releases below. Why not visit us for an Open Day and get your own taste of working with professional athletes.

Sports Therapists with the Namibian Team

BSc Sports Therapy

Open Days at Marjon

Evidence-Based Practice for Health Professionals

Howlett, B., Rogo, E.J. & Shelton, T.G. (2013) Evidence-Based Practice for Health Professionals. An Interprofessional Approach. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

We are constantly pressing this notion of "Evidence-Based Practice" or "Evidence-Informed Medicine" or any other quirky title they decide to give it. But what do we mean by EBP and how do we apply it into practice?

To integrate the use of EBP within clinical practice, we need to understand the what's, why's and how's of research. We know we can use findings from published research to justify our choice of diagnostic or treatment methods but we need to be able to critically appraise the research methods in order to inform our practice.

This excellent text provides a guide to locating relevant evidence, exploring descriptive and inferential stats and aspects of EBP including epidemiology, assessment and diagnosis, treatment and
pharmaceuticals.

(And note - copies have currently been ordered for the University of St Mark and St John Library!)

Sarah Martin
Lecturer

Lab Renovation Pictures

Five years ago we had a new lab built and since then students and staff have had the benefit of using the fantastic space that it was. This year we have been lucky enough to have the next phase of our renovation undertaken and the larger single space is now becoming several smaller but more specialised spaces. We will post more pictures when it is finished in a few weeks.



If you have any trouble seeing the slideshow above, click here for a link to view the pictures in picasa.

Behind the Scenes

Some of the work that we do in the department often goes unseen and our work with The Workplace Wellbeing Charter is one such area of work. For a year or so, I've been on the steering group for the local Workplace Wellbeing Charter and along with other members of the group have been helping to guide and inform the adoption of a new charter in Plymouth. Delivered by Plymouth Community Health the Charter is designed as an opportunity for employers to consider their commitment to their employee's overall health.


Next month will see the first cycle of employers receive their awards and as with any project it should be a great opportunity to see both the worthy recipients, the staff of those organisations and also the hard working team at Plymouth Community Health that have worked with passion and commitment to help deliver this initiative.

Ben Jane
Senior Lecturer

The impact of social inequality on health

Sir Michael Marmot has a new book out and in yesterday's Guardian there was an article that outlines some of his concerns around the entrenchment of societies inequities and how these impact upon the health of the nation. Individually, we are all responsible for many lifestyle choices but just how much control we actually have is a contentious issue and we can be pretty sure that it isn't as much as we would like to think.


Understanding how much control people have over their lifestyle choices has an impact on our expectations when designing lifestyle interventions and working with patients and clients and increasingly researchers are pointing to the bigger, socio-ecological factors as being the areas that need more attention if we are going to decrease rates of lifestyle related illness.


To read more, see The Health Gap, by Sir Michael Marmot

First Post!!

This is the first post on our new "Health @ Marjon" blog. In addition to the well established undergraduate courses of "Health, Exercise and Physical Activity", "Sports Therapy" and "Rehabilitation", we are re-grouping and developing exciting new courses in the areas of nutrition, biomedical sciences, clinical exercise science and post-graduate courses in public health and sports medicine.
There are already lots of resources for students and fellow professionals in the form of www.benjanefitness.com and on twitter @marjonHEPA but this site is intended to bring together our work across a range of courses and to give us a place where we can highlight all of the behind the scenes work that goes on in our and around our degree courses.
Its hoped that posts will be made by teaching staff, current students, graduates and hopefully some of the colleagues that we alongside from other organisations too.
So for now, if you need any more information please contact us and ask.
Regards,
Ben Jane
Senior Lecturer