Rural nursing and allied health placements during the latter stage of the COVID-19 public health emergency: A national study.

Objective: To explore changes to rural nursing and allied health placements during the latter stage of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Setting: Regional, rural and remote Australia.

Participants: Nursing and allied health students with a scheduled University Department of Rural Health (UDRH) facilitated rural placement between 1 January 2022 and 31 October 2022.

Maternal oxygenation and fetal-neonatal mortality among patients with COVID-19 requiring advanced respiratory support in ICU: A multicenter prospective cohort study.

Objective: To explore the association of maternal characteristics, oxygenation, and mechanical ventilatory parameters with fetal and neonatal outcomes.

Methods: The present study was a multicenter, binational (Argentina/Colombia), prospective, cohort study, conducted in 21 intensive care units (ICUs) and including pregnant or postpartum patients with COVID-19 pneumonia requiring advanced respiratory support and their fetuses/neonates. Advanced respiratory support was defined as high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC), non-invasive ventilation (NIV) or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV).

"Well I Failed, but I Have No Idea Why"…: Experiences of Feedback After High-Stakes Summative Specialist Medical Examination in Ophthalmology.

Objective: Medical specialist trainees report dissatisfaction with both the usefulness and timing of feedback provided following summative examinations. This study aimed to explore ophthalmology trainee and supervisor experiences of feedback following final summative examination (the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists Advanced Clinical Examination (RACE)).

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with ophthalmology trainees who had recently sat RACE (2017-2021) ( = 19) and supervising ophthalmologists who support trainees to prepare for RACE ( = 10).

Perspectives of work readiness among Australian health students trained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: To explore perspectives of work readiness, including readiness to work rurally, among health students trained in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Participants were allied health, medicine, and nursing students in the later years of their degree (third, fourth or final year of an undergraduate entry to practice degree, or second year of postgraduate entry to practice degree), where training is clinically immersive. These students had completed a University Department of Rural Health facilitated rural and remote placement between January 2021 and October 2022.

Understanding rural pharmacists' perspectives: lived experiences and insights associated with rural recruitment and retention.

Introduction: Pharmacists serve an important role in rural communities, and in some cases they may be the only health professional available. Their recruitment and retention is a major concern for rural communities and health services; however, a deeper understanding regarding the advantages and challenges of sustaining a rural pharmacy workforce is somewhat limited. The aim of this study was to develop a deeper understanding of pharmacists' perspectives about factors influencing pharmacist recruitment and retention to rural and remote communities.

Preparing for success in final summative medical specialist examinations: The case for RACE.

Background: Failure rates on medical specialist final summative examinations in Australia are high, regardless of speciality. Examination failure can have detrimental psycho-social, financial and job security effects on the trainee, while delays in completion of training adversely impacts workforce growth and health outcomes for the community. The study aimed to explore the preparation factors that contribute to ophthalmology trainee success in their final summative examination.

Is tree planting an effective strategy for climate change mitigation?

The world's forests store large amounts of carbon (C), and growing forests can reduce atmospheric CO by storing C in their biomass. This has provided the impetus for world-wide tree planting initiatives to offset fossil-fuel emissions. However, forests interact with their environment in complex and multifaceted ways that must be considered for a balanced assessment of the value of planting trees.

Continuous microfluidic flow-through protocol for selective and image-activated electroporation of single cells.

Electroporation of cells is a widely-used tool to transport molecules such as proteins or nucleic acids into cells or to extract cellular material. However, bulk methods for electroporation do not offer the possibility to selectively porate subpopulations or single cells in heterogeneous cell samples. To achieve this, either presorting or complex single-cell technologies are required currently.

High-precision, low-complexity, high-resolution microscopy-based cell sorting.

Continuous flow cell sorting based on image analysis is a powerful concept that exploits spatially-resolved features in cells, such as subcellular protein localisation or cell and organelle morphology, to isolate highly specialised cell types that were previously inaccessible to biomedical research, biotechnology, and medicine. Recently, sorting protocols have been proposed that achieve impressive throughput by combining ultra-high flow rates with sophisticated imaging and data processing protocols. However, moderate image quality and high complex experimental setups still prevent the full potential of image-activated cell sorting from being a general-purpose tool.

Potential impacts of climate change on the productivity and soil carbon stocks of managed grasslands.

Rain-fed pastoral systems are tightly connected to meteorological conditions. It is, therefore, likely that climate change, including changing atmospheric CO2 concentration, temperature, precipitation and patterns of climate extremes, will greatly affect pastoral systems. However, exact impacts on the productivity and carbon dynamics of these systems are still poorly understood, particularly over longtime scales.

The Pharmacy Community Apgar Questionnaire: a modified Delphi technique to develop a rural pharmacist recruitment and retention tool.

Introduction: An adequate healthcare workforce remains essential for the health of rural communities. Strategies to address rural health workforce challenges have often centred on the medical and nursing workforce; however, addressing the rural pharmacist workforce also remains critical as they are often the first point of contact for health advice. Initiatives have increased pharmacist supply; however, key issues such as poor attraction, recruitment, and retention to rural areas remain.

Sustaining rural pharmacy workforce understanding key attributes for enhanced retention and recruitment.

Objective: To pilot the Pharmacist Community Apgar Questionnaire (PharmCAQ) and evaluate its usability and capacity to develop a greater understanding of the unique factors that impact the rural recruitment and retention of pharmacists.

Design: Cross-sectional design involving face-to-face, telephone or video conferencing interviews.

Setting: Twelve rural communities across Tasmania and Western Victoria, Australia.

Ventilatory Parameters in Obstetric Patients With COVID-19 and Impact of Delivery: A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: Current evidence on obstetric patients requiring advanced ventilatory support and impact of delivery on ventilatory parameters is retrospective, scarce, and controversial.

Research Question: What are the ventilatory parameters for obstetric patients with COVID-19 and how does delivery impact them? What are the risk factors for invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) and for maternal, fetal, and neonatal mortality?

Study Design And Methods: Prospective, multicenter, cohort study including pregnant and postpartum patients with COVID-19 requiring advanced ventilatory support in the ICU.

Results: Ninety-one patients were admitted to 21 ICUs at 29.

Bridge to the future: Important lessons from 20 years of ecosystem observations made by the OzFlux network.

In 2020, the Australian and New Zealand flux research and monitoring network, OzFlux, celebrated its 20 anniversary by reflecting on the lessons learned through two decades of ecosystem studies on global change biology. OzFlux is a network not only for ecosystem researchers, but also for those 'next users' of the knowledge, information and data that such networks provide. Here, we focus on eight lessons across topics of climate change and variability, disturbance and resilience, drought and heat stress and synergies with remote sensing and modelling.

Clinical Profile and 30-Day Outcomes of Patients with Bicuspid Aortic Valve Undergoing Aortic Valve and/or Aorta Surgery.

Background: The bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) affects 0.5 to 2% of the population and is associated with valve and aortic alterations. There is a lack of studies on the profile of these patients in the Brazilian population.

COVID-19, congenital heart disease, and pregnancy: dramatic conjunction-case report.

Background: Epidemiological data from the COVID-19 pandemic report that patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease have worse outcomes and higher mortality, and that pregnant women should be considered at high risk.

Case Summary: A 25-year-old pregnant woman on the waiting list for a heart transplant, with a history of complete atrioventricular canal surgery, mitral mechanical prosthetic implant (St Jude-27), and cardiac resynchronization therapy (Boston Scientific) was hospitalized at 30 weeks of gestation for treatment of heart failure. After 7 days of hospitalization, she had a positive RT-PCR test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with progressive worsening of her clinical condition and acute foetal distress.

Factors contributing to the recruitment and retention of rural pharmacist workforce: a systematic review.

Background: Recruiting and retaining medical, nursing, and allied health professionals in rural and remote areas is a worldwide challenge, compromising continuity of care and population health outcomes in these locations. Specifically, pharmacists play an essential and accessible frontline healthcare role, and are often the first point of contact for health concerns. Despite several incentives, there remains a maldistribution and undersupply of pharmacists in rural and remote areas across many parts of the world.

Short-Term Temperature Response of Leaf Respiration in Different Subtropical Urban Tree Species.

Plant leaf respiration is one of the critical components of the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. To predict changes of carbon emissions from leaves to the atmosphere under a warming climate, it is, therefore, important to understand the thermodynamics of the temperature response of leaf respiration. In this study, we measured the short-term temperature response of leaf respiration from five different urban tree species in a subtropical region of southern China.

Trade-offs between environmental and economic factors in conversion from exotic pine production to natural regeneration on erosion prone land.

Background: Some of New Zealand's exotic pine ( D.Don) forests were planted for erosion mitigation but cultural, legislative, environmental, and profitability limitations in some parts of the landscape have led to reassessment of their suitability. There is limited information to support landowner decisions on the viability of natural regeneration of native forest post-pine-harvest.

Ensemble modelling, uncertainty and robust predictions of organic carbon in long-term bare-fallow soils.

Simulation models represent soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in global carbon (C) cycle scenarios to support climate-change studies. It is imperative to increase confidence in long-term predictions of SOC dynamics by reducing the uncertainty in model estimates. We evaluated SOC simulated from an ensemble of 26 process-based C models by comparing simulations to experimental data from seven long-term bare-fallow (vegetation-free) plots at six sites: Denmark (two sites), France, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Expectations and perception of cancer treatment goals in previously untreated patients. The EXPECT trial.

Purpose: Misconceptions regarding activity and toxicity of therapeutic interventions are common among cancer patients. There is little knowledge about the factors that contribute to a more realistic perception by patients.

Methods: This pilot study was designed as a prospective questionnaire survey and included 101 therapy-naïve patients treated at the Division of Oncology, Medical University of Vienna.