Diversity awareness, diversity competency and access to healthcare for minority groups: perspectives of healthcare professionals in Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia.

Introduction: Due to cultural, language, or legal barriers, members of social minority groups face challenges in access to healthcare. Equality of healthcare provision can be achieved through raised diversity awareness and diversity competency of healthcare professionals. The aim of this research was to explore the experiences and attitudes of healthcare professionals toward the issue of social diversity and equal access to healthcare in Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia.

Equal access to healthcare in national legislations: how do Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia counteract discrimination in healthcare?

Background: The aim of the study was a comparative analysis of legislative measures against discrimination in healthcare on the grounds of a) race and ethnicity, b) religion and belief, and c) gender identity and sexual orientation in Croatia, Germany, Poland and Slovenia.

Methods: We conducted a search for documents in national legal databases and reviewed legal commentaries, scientific literature and official reports of equality bodies. We integrated a comparative method with text analysis and the critical interpretive approach.

Diversity Competency and Access to Healthcare in Hospitals in Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia.

Diversity competency is an approach for improving access to healthcare for members of minority groups. It includes a commitment to institutional policies and practices aimed at the improvement of the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals. The aim of this research is to investigate whether and how such a commitment is included in internal documents of hospitals in Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia.

Social diversity and access to healthcare in Europe: how does European Union's legislation prevent from discrimination in healthcare?

Background: Social diversity can affect healthcare outcomes in situations when access to healthcare is limited for specific groups. Although the principle of equality is one of the central topics on the agenda of the European Union (EU), its scope in the field of healthcare, however, is relatively unexplored. The aim of this study is to identify and systematically analyze primary and secondary legislation of the EU Institutions that concern the issue of access to healthcare for various minority groups.

Development of homologous skin, bone and other soft tissues transplantation in Slovenia.

In Slovenia, transplantation of tissues such as skin and bone was successfully following global trends throughout its history. First documented homologous skin graft was already mentioned back in 1901. Alongside with new discoveries in immunology and advancements in burn surgery, skin transplantation development surged in the second half of 20th century.

The development of nuclear medicine in Slovenia and Ljubljana; half a century of nuclear medicine in Slovenia.

Background: Nuclear medicine began to be developed in the USA after 1938 when radionuclides were introduced into medicine and in Europe after radionuclides began to be produced at the Harwell reactor (England, 1947). Slovenia began its first investigations in the 1950s. This article describes the development of nuclear medicine in Slovenia and Ljubljana.

Valdoltra and osteoarticular tuberculosis among Slovenians--the 100th anniversary of the Valdoltra Hospital.

The 100th anniversary of the hospital in Valdoltra, Slovenia, on the northeastern Adriatic coast near the Italian frontier--where borders have frequently changed (the town has belonged to Austria-Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Slovenia) and which experienced military occupation in the interwar period--offers an opportunity to review the professional path of this institution. The hospital was established in 1909 as an act of charity by the Trieste Friends of Children Society due to the high incidence of scrofula as well as bone and extrapulmonary tuberculosis among Trieste children. With 270 beds, it provided medical assistance to sick children and also later to adults.

Development of orthopaedics in Slovenia and the history of the Orthopaedic Department Ljubljana University Hospital--on the occasion of the WHO "Bone and Joint Decade" (2000-2010).

In Slovenia, orthopaedics started to develop at the end of WWI, when the number of the handicapped increased. Dr Anton Brecelj, who in 1919 laid the groundwork for the welfare of handicapped and sent a Czech doctor Franc Minař to specialise in orthopaedic surgery. When Minař returned to Ljubljana in 1923, he established an orthopaedic unit within surgery and in 1937 took over its management.

Heart surgeon Miro Košak (1919-2010) and his contribution to the development of cardiovascular surgery in slovenia.

Heart surgeon Miro Košak was a pioneer of modern cardiovascular surgery in Slovenia; in 1958, he performed the first open-heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation, in 1965, the first implantation of heart valve and pacemaker, and in 1971, the first bypass on coronary arteries. He also paved the way for heart transplantations that followed.

Development of ophthalmology in Slovenia and University Eye Hospital in Ljubljana (1890-2010): at the 120th anniversary of the University Eye Hospital in Ljubljana.

Slovenian ophthalmology developed much at the same time as in the rest of the Central Europe). The first Slovenian ophthalmologist was Dr Ludvik Grbec (1805%emdash;1880). The first Slovenian eye department was established within the Ljubljana civil hospital in 1890, and initially counted 34 hospital beds.

The development of Slovenian Heart Surgery: celebrating 50 years (1958-2008).

Background: The beginnings of Slovenian cardiac surgery reach back to 1958, when the first heart surgery using extracorporeal circulation (ECC) was performed. The 50th anniversary of this event was the impetus for reviewing its developmental path.

Methods: History of medicine methodology, including analysis of archival materials, documents, and various publications of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Ljubljana University Medical Center, Slovenia.

Indications for caesarean delivery between 1955 and 2005.

Introduction: We wished to evaluate the changes in the indications and rates of caesarean delivery over the past 50 years (1955-2005) at the Ljubljana Maternity Hospital, the largest maternity hospital in Slovenia and a tertiary center.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data obtained from delivery records, archived at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Medical Center Ljubljana, for the selected years 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2005. The records were archived in bound books (1955), folders (1965 and 1975), on microfilm (1985) and in the national perinatal information system (1995 and 2005).

[Ninety years of the antituberculosis mission of the Topolsica Hospital (1919-2009)].

The beginnings of the hospital reach back to the discovery of a thermal spring in the sixteenth century, which became a public bath and eventually a spa in 1838. In 1919, the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes purchased the premises and converted the spa into a tuberculosis sanatorium. The institution prospered rapidly and began to expand.

Identification of family relationships by epigenetic traits.

In analyzing family burials, it is often necessary to establish the nature of the family relationship. This study examines 18 skulls from the 14th and 15th century, presumptively assigned to the family of the Counts of Celje from the territory of present-day Slovenia. Though DNA analysis is the identification method of choice, it is not always possible to apply it.

[Skrljevo disease in Slovenia].

During the first decades of the 19th century a disease appeared in the regions of Inner Carniola and Carst which was, due to its unusual course, at first considered a new entity. It spread among the population in an asexual, extragenital and endemic way and was enhanced by poor economic and hygienic circumstances. Since the clinical picture of the disease resembled sporadic syphilis, some doctors thought that it was a combination of syphilis and some others contagious disease, while others considered it sporadic syphilis.