Racism and Professional Competence: Nursing Students in Interracial Evaluations.

BACKGROUND: This pilot study examined the association of internal and external motivation of White nursing students to avoid appearing racist while interacting with standardized patients in a simulation-based learning experience (SP-SBLE). The influence of nursing students' preexisting motivations to avoid racism were examined for their effect on clinical performance in their SP-SBLE. METHOD: White nursing students (N = 50) completed measures of motivations to avoid racism prior to their end of semester practical examination. Students were then randomly assigned to an SBLE with a SP portraying chest pain. RESULTS: White students interacting with White SPs performed better than White students interacting with Black SPs. CONCLUSION: Concern about appearing racist may interfere with White students' ability to perform well in a clinical setting because it may draw cognitive resources away from the clinical task. This is a first step in understanding how nursing students' perceptions may contribute to racial inequities in health. [J Nurs Educ. 2022;61(1):41-45.].

Changes in peat chemistry associated with permafrost thaw increase greenhouse gas production.

Carbon release due to permafrost thaw represents a potentially major positive climate change feedback. The magnitude of carbon loss and the proportion lost as methane (CH4) vs. carbon dioxide (CO2) depend on factors including temperature, mobilization of previously frozen carbon, hydrology, and changes in organic matter chemistry associated with environmental responses to thaw. While the first three of these effects are relatively well understood, the effect of organic matter chemistry remains largely unstudied. To address this gap, we examined the biogeochemistry of peat and dissolved organic matter (DOM) along a ∼40-y permafrost thaw progression from recently- to fully thawed sites in Stordalen Mire (68.35°N, 19.05°E), a thawing peat plateau in northern Sweden. Thaw-induced subsidence and the resulting inundation along this progression led to succession in vegetation types accompanied by an evolution in organic matter chemistry. Peat C/N ratios decreased whereas humification rates increased, and DOM shifted toward lower molecular weight compounds with lower aromaticity, lower organic oxygen content, and more abundant microbially produced compounds. Corresponding changes in decomposition along this gradient included increasing CH4 and CO2 production potentials, higher relative CH4/CO2 ratios, and a shift in CH4 production pathway from CO2 reduction to acetate cleavage. These results imply that subsidence and thermokarst-associated increases in organic matter lability cause shifts in biogeochemical processes toward faster decomposition with an increasing proportion of carbon released as CH4. This impact of permafrost thaw on organic matter chemistry could intensify the predicted climate feedbacks of increasing temperatures, permafrost carbon mobilization, and hydrologic changes.