Hospital corridors as lived spaces: The reconfiguration of social boundaries during the early stages of the Covid pandemic

This article explores the meanings and uses of a hospital corridor through 98 diary entries produced by the staff of an English specialist hospital during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on Lefebvre's (1991, The production of space. Blackwell) threefold theorisation of space, corridors are seen as conceived, perceived and lived spaces, produced through and enabling the reconfiguration and reinterpretation of social interactions. The diaries depict two distinct versions of the central hospital corridor: its 'normal' operation prior to the pandemic when it was perceived as a social and symbolic space for collective sensemaking and the 'COVID-19 empty corridor' described as a haunting place that divided hospital staff along ostensibly new social and moral boundaries that impacted negatively on lived work experiences and staff relationships. The mobilisation of the central hospital corridor in the daily social construction of meaning and experience during a period of organisational and societal crisis suggests that corridors should not be only seen as a material backdrop for work relationships but as social entities that come into being and are maintained and reproduced through the (lack of) performance of social relations.

Using nanopore sequencing to identify bacterial infection in joint replacements: a preliminary study

This project investigates if third-generation genomic sequencing can be used to identify the species of bacteria causing prosthetic joint infections (PJIs) at the time of revision surgery. Samples of prosthetic fluid were taken during revision surgery from patients with known PJIs. Samples from revision surgeries from non-infected patients acted as negative controls. Genomic sequencing was performed using the MinION device and the rapid sequencing kit from Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Bioinformatic analysis pipelines to identify bacteria included Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, Kraken2 and MinION Detection Software, and the results were compared with standard of care microbiological cultures. Furthermore, there was an attempt to predict antibiotic resistance using computational tools including ResFinder, AMRFinderPlus and Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database. Bacteria identified using microbiological cultures were successfully identified using bioinformatic analysis pipelines. Nanopore sequencing and genomic classification could be completed in the time it takes to perform joint revision surgery (2-3 h). Genomic sequencing in this study was not able to predict antibiotic resistance in this time frame, this is thought to be due to a short-read length and low read depth. It can be concluded that genomic sequencing can be useful to identify bacterial species in infected joint replacements. However, further work is required to investigate if it can be used to predict antibiotic resistance within clinically relevant timeframes.