This presentataion outlines the development of a post-membership masterclass programme in Perinatal Psychiatry, funded by Health Education England and delivered through the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The masterclass programme renges from 5-15 days and there are separate programmes for consultants, SAS doctors and senior trainees in psychiatry. The course is delivered by experts in the area and contains a mix of didactic teaching and small group work. The programme was developed to meet the workforce needs of rapidly expanding perinatal mental services throughout England. The programme also helps facilitate the needs of perinatal psychiatrists from Ireland and from the devolved nations of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

British Telecom’s 1984 partial privatization set in motion the privatization and deregulation of many international state-owned telecommunications carriers. Most previous research on the privatization and deregulation of state-owned telecommunications carriers has focused on the economic outcomes. However, this was also a time of changes in managerial practice and thinking influenced by organizational theory. This article presents an analysis of the use of the prescriptions of Rosabeth Kanter in the attempted reform of the organizational culture of Australia’s largest business in the 1980s: the government-owned telecommunications monopoly Telecom Australia (now Telstra). It details the attempt to transform Telecom under the incipient threat of the introduction of competition to the telecommunications market and demonstrates how the country’s largest change management program, Vision 2000, represented an alternative approach to telecommunications reform.

After a decade, different businesses adhere to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Some key commercial entities, however, remain largely outside of the UNGPs universe, including professional service providers (PSPs) who are retained by businesses to provide  expert advice and services. These advisors include lawyers, management consultants, architects and others. Some may have specialized units that provide advice on the UNGPs when retained solely for that purpose. But when asked to provide general commercial legal advice, to design a building, or restructure a business, such advisors do not typically appear to apply the UNGPs, to identify negative human rights impacts and tailor their advice in a way that prevents or mitigates such impacts. This article explores the connection between the advice provided by PSPs and negative human rights impacts. It underscores the critical need for these advisors to align their business processes and advisory services with the UNGPs to avoid being enablers of human rights abuses.

Do experts rationalize and legitimize authoritarian governance? Although research on expert actors in contexts of democracy and international governance is now extensive, scholarly work on their role in authoritarian settings remains limited. This article helps open the black box of authoritarian decision-making by investigating expert advisers in the Arab Gulf monarchies, where ruling elites have enlisted them from top universities and global consulting firms. Qualitative fieldwork combined with three experiments casts doubt on both the rationalization and legitimacy hypotheses and also generates new insights surrounding unintended consequences. On rationalization, the evidence suggests that experts contribute to perverse cycles of overconfidence among authoritarian ruling elites, thereby enabling a belief in state-building shortcuts. On legitimacy, the experiments demonstrate a backfire effect, with experts reducing public support for reform. The author makes theoretical contributions by suggesting important and heretofore unrecognized conflicts and trade-offs across experts’ potential for rationalizing vis-à-vis legitimizing.

American political campaigns have become a multi-billion dollar industry. Rather than assume that only political factors affect the campaigns that voters see, scholars must assess the importance of the business incentives associated with political consulting. Economic competition does not match political competition; firms compete for clients within the two major parties, against their political allies. I argue that the supply of firms in each party, the revenue models in the industry, the diversification of client types, and the cooperative structure in each party all may affect political campaigns. The way the industry operates and the different patterns of behavior within each party create incentives and practices that may alter campaigns in response to economic factors having little to do with optimal political strategy. Using two original surveys and a network analysis, I analyze how the industry is changing and how consultants in each party cooperate and compete.

Small business owners who turn to professional web development consultants for assistance with building a web site may need support not only in terms of the technical aspects of web site implementation, but also in terms of understanding their options for e-business. However, client/consultant relationships within the small business sector can be problematic and the limited research available into small business engagement of web developers suggests that bad experiences and disappointing outcomes are not uncommon.

Interpretive case study methodology was used to explore four sets of small business owner/web developer relationships: how each pair worked together and what they expected of each other. The negotiation and clarification of roles and responsibilities proved to be an essential aspect of the relationships. Also, achieving an adequate level of client involvement in the web site design and development process was a challenge in all cases.

Objectives: A patient's suicide is arguably the event of most concern to consultant psychiatrists. Given the rise in the rate of suicide in the Republic of Ireland, the impact it has should not be underestimated. The aims of the study were: to assess the effect a patient's suicide has on a consultant's personal and professional life; to identify what factors modulated or exacerbated their response to the suicide; and to highlight what was shown to be beneficial in coping with the aftermath.

Methods: Following a literature review, a questionnaire from a previous study was chosen. This was sent to 74 consultants working in the Munster province. It asked consultants to recall their ‘most distressing’ suicide and their response to it. The results were analysed using quantitative methodology. A further literature review was conducted on the issues raised.

Results: The questionnaire response rate was 67.5%. A total of 80% of consultants had a patient commit suicide under their care. In the case of 27.5%, consultants said that their personal lives had been affected by the suicide and 32.5% said that their professional lives had been affected. The majority of those affected were recently appointed consultants. Consultants' peers and team were significant sources of support, as were team meetings. A total of 57.5% of consultants said that their management of future suicidal patients had changed following the suicide.

Conclusions: A proportion of consultants experience negative effects in their lives as a consequence of patient suicide. However the support of consultant peers, the team and team meetings may help in the aftermath.

Tonsillectomy is a commonly performed operation in children. Although the justification for this procedure has been debatable in the past, more rigorous criteria in defining the need for tonsillectomies are becoming established. The role of the primary care physician in the management of tonsillar disease in children is important as the decision to refer a child for tonsillectomy is made by the general practitioner. A questionnaire survey of 400 general practitioners (GPs) and 31 consultant ENT surgeons was carried out to establish the important criteria used in deciding the need for paediatric tonsillectomy. We found that in general there was a good correlation between GP and Consultant indications for tonsillectomy. However there were two important areas of difference, while most of the GPs felt that recurrent ear infections and ‘glue ear’ were important indications for tonsillectomy, Consultants did not. Therefore we must be aware of the current recommendations for tonsillectomy and inform present and future GPs.