Family planning, pregnancy, and parenthood during surgical training: Experiences and perspectives from trainees and early career surgeons in Australia and New Zealand.

Objective: To identify and address areas for improvement within the current surgical training model in Australia and New Zealand relating to family planning and inflexible training as top barriers to gender equity in surgery.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of accredited surgical trainees and early career surgeons in Australia and New Zealand was conducted between September and October 2023. Participants were recruited by the RACS Fax Mentis, the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand (USANZ) e-newsletter, and medical social media networks.

ChatGPT can help guide and empower patients after prostate cancer diagnosis.

Background/objectives: Patients often face uncertainty about what they should know after prostate cancer diagnosis. Web-based information is common but is at risk of being of poor quality or readability.

Subjects/methods: We used ChatGPT, a freely available Artificial intelligence (AI) platform, to generate enquiries about prostate cancer that a newly diagnosed patient might ask and compared to Google search trends.

Anatrophic nephrolithotomy and pyelolithotomy for dual staghorn calculi in bifid collecting system.

A bifid ureter is an atypical anatomical variation that occurs with an incidence of 1-10%. This anomaly is in a continuum of duplex collecting systems and most commonly involves a common distal ureter. This is usually asymptomatic and is predominantly an incidental diagnosis, nevertheless, is a potential risk factor for urolithiasis formation.

Volatile Organic Compounds Released During the Fast Pyrolysis of Peanut Shells and Environmental Implications.

The biomass conversion technologies, especially different types of pyrolysis, have been intensively studied to improve biomass energy transformation suggesting a low impact on the environment. In particular, fast pyrolysis of biomass is considered to be a thermal process in which the starting material is converted to bio-oil, char and gas products. In this work, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the gaseous fraction of peanut shells fast pyrolysis were collected and identified at atmospheric pressure.

Nephron-sparing surgery for the management of upper tract urothelial carcinoma: an outline of surgical technique and review of outcomes.

Upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) often occurs in elderly patients with multiple co-morbidities including renal impairment. As such, nephron sparing surgery (NSS) often needs to be considered. This article reviews the available NSS techniques for UTUC, including ureteroscopy, percutaneous approaches and segmental ureterectomy.

Making surgery safer in an increasingly digital world: the internet-friend or foe?

Purpose: The internet has resulted in huge efficiency gains in health care, the ability to deal with massive data accumulation and better manage patient data. However, potential and real pitfalls exist, including breeches in security of data and patient confidentiality, data storage issues, errors, and user interface issues.

Methods: A MEDLINE review was performed using MeSH terms "health care" and "information technology.

Antineoplastic therapy administration: Nursing intervention in the relief of suffering.

Objective: To identify the nursing interventions with potential to act on the suffering and to evaluate the results of the nursing intervention designed.

Method: We used a multi method study. After the identification of the scientific evidence and having found the supporting theory, the intervention process to relieve the suffering of hospitalized patients was modeled using the methodology of qualitative research.

Plastic ingestion in aquatic birds in Portugal.

In modern society, plastic items have become indispensable. The rapid growth of plastic production has led to an increase in the concentration of plastic waste in the environment and, consequently, wildlife has been severely affected. As wide-ranging foragers and predators, aquatic birds are ideal sentinels for monitoring changes in their environment.

Multibiomarker interactions to diagnose and follow-up chronic exposure of a marine crustacean to Hazardous and Noxious Substances (HNS).

Integrated compensatory responses of physiological systems towards homeostasis are generally overlooked when it comes to analysing alterations in biochemical parameters indicative of such processes. Here an hypothesis-driven multivariate analysis accounting for interactive multibiomarker responses was used to investigate effects of long-term exposure of Carcinus maenas to Hazardous and Noxious Substances (HNS). Adult male crabs were exposed to low and high post-spill levels of acrylonitrile (ACN) or aniline (ANL) for 21d.

Plataforma PEnsinar®: a learning tool for teaching the nursing process.

Objective: to describe the construction and transition phases undertaken in the development of a virtual learning environment named Plataforma PEnsinar® (PEnsinar Platform®). This platform aims at teaching the nursing process and the nursing classifications NANDA International, NIC, NOC and ICNP®.

Method: this is a methodological and technological development research that used construction and transition phases of the software development process named Rational Unified Process.

Flux model to estimate the transport of mercury species in a contaminated lagoon (Ria de Aveiro, Portugal).

The concentrations of dissolved and particulate inorganic mercury (IHg(II)) and methylmercury (MeHg) from the contaminated Laranjo Bay (main freshwater discharge from the Antuã River) were measured by species-specific isotope dilution during six sampling campaigns at high and at low tide. Different effective riverine concentrations were calculated, based on salinity profiles, for specific hydrological conditions. The export fluxes of total Hg and MeHg (324 and 1.

Mitochondrial Encephalopathy: First Portuguese Report of a VARS2 Causative Variant.

Introduction: Combined oxidative phosphorylation deficiency 20 (COXPD20) is a mitochondrial respiratory chain complex (RC) disorder, caused by disease-causing variants in the VARS2 gene, which encodes a mitochondrial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase. Here we describe a patient with fatal mitochondrial encephalopathy caused by a homozygous VARS2 gene missense variant.

Case Report: We report the case of a girl, the first child of non-consanguineous and healthy parents, born from an uneventful term pregnancy, who presented, in the neonatal period, major hypotonia and microcephaly.

Impact of a structured multicomponent educational intervention program on metabolic control of patients with type 2 diabetes.

Background: Diabetes is one of the most common metabolic disorders, with a high prevalence of patients with poor metabolic control. Worldwide, evidence highlights the importance of developing and implementing educational interventions that can reduce this burden. The main objective of this study was to analyse the impact of a lifestyle centred intervention on glycaemic control of poorly controlled type 2 diabetic patients, followed in a Community Care Centre.

Constructed wetlands for the removal of metals from livestock wastewater - Can the presence of veterinary antibiotics affect removals?

The presence of emergent antibiotics, in livestock wastewater may affect constructed wetlands (CWs) performance in the removal of other pollutants. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of two antibiotics commonly used in livestock industry, enrofloxacin and ceftiofur, on metal removal by CWs. Microcosms (0.

Multiple regression analysis to assess the role of plankton on the distribution and speciation of mercury in water of a contaminated lagoon.

Spatial and seasonal variation of mercury species aqueous concentrations and distributions was carried out during six sampling campaigns at four locations within Laranjo Bay, the most mercury-contaminated area of the Aveiro Lagoon (Portugal). Inorganic mercury (IHg(II)) and methylmercury (MeHg) were determined in filter-retained (IHgPART, MeHgPART) and filtered (<0.45μm) fractions (IHg(II)DISS, MeHgDISS).

Assessing Genetic Structure in Common but Ecologically Distinct Carnivores: The Stone Marten and Red Fox.

The identification of populations and spatial genetic patterns is important for ecological and conservation research, and spatially explicit individual-based methods have been recognised as powerful tools in this context. Mammalian carnivores are intrinsically vulnerable to habitat fragmentation but not much is known about the genetic consequences of fragmentation in common species. Stone martens (Martes foina) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) share a widespread Palearctic distribution and are considered habitat generalists, but in the Iberian Peninsula stone martens tend to occur in higher quality habitats.

Patterns-of-care and health economic analysis of robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in the Australian public health system.

Objectives: To compare patterns of care and peri-operative outcomes of robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) with other surgical approaches, and to create an economic model to assess the viability of RARP in the public case-mix funding system.

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all radical prostatectomies (RPs) performed for localized prostate cancer in Victoria, Australia, from the Victorian Admitted Episode Dataset, a large administrative database that records all hospital inpatient episodes in Victoria. The first database, covering the period from July 2010 to April 2013 (n = 5 130), was used to compare length of hospital stay (LOS) and blood transfusion rates between surgical approaches.

Inferring Population Genetic Structure in Widely and Continuously Distributed Carnivores: The Stone Marten (Martes foina) as a Case Study.

The stone marten is a widely distributed mustelid in the Palaearctic region that exhibits variable habitat preferences in different parts of its range. The species is a Holocene immigrant from southwest Asia which, according to fossil remains, followed the expansion of the Neolithic farming cultures into Europe and possibly colonized the Iberian Peninsula during the Early Neolithic (ca. 7,000 years BP).

Response of a salt marsh microbial community to antibiotic contamination.

Salt marsh plants and associated microorganisms can have an important role in contaminant removal from estuaries, through bioremediation processes. Nevertheless, the interaction between emerging contaminants, namely antibiotics, and plant-microorganism associations in estuarine environment are still scarcely known. In this vein, the aim of the present study was to evaluate, in controlled conditions, the response of a salt marsh plant-microorganism association to a contamination with a veterinary antibiotic.

Interferences of surfactants during determination of chlorophenols by acetylation coupled to headspace-solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography with an electron capture detector.

The micellar extraction (ME) of chlorophenols (CPs) from solid samples is rapid and avoids the use of organic solvents. The cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is a powerful agent for ME of CPs. However, CTAB will be an important interference when the extracts are subsequently analyzed by direct solid phase microextraction (SPME) without a previous derivatization step.

Microbial community dynamics associated with veterinary antibiotics removal in constructed wetlands microcosms.

This study aimed to evaluate the response of the microbial community from CWs microcosms tested for the removal of two veterinary antibiotics, enrofloxacin (ENR) and tetracycline (TET), from livestock industry wastewater. Three treatments were tested (control, ENR or TET (100 μg L(-1))) over 12 weeks in microcosms unplanted and planted with Phragmites australis. CWs removal efficiency was relatively stable along time, with removals higher than 98% for ENR and 94% for TET.