Work space

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News • Study on clinical decision making

When nurses decide on triage, intuition often trumps standard assessment tools

Nurses around the world use intuition to work out how sick a patient is before triaging for treatment – according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

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News • Lessons learned from the pandemic

Should mask rules remain in health care settings?

Rates of Covid-19 are decreasing and many healthcare workers stop wearing face masks. However, that may not be such a good idea, a new commentary from US experts suggests.

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News • Labour shortage countermeasures

Study: why many nurses and doctors quit their job (and how to make them stay)

In Europe, healthcare faces significant labour shortages, due to the high job strain of nurses and physicians. The METEOR project points out strategies to retain medical personnel.

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News • Statement against "unacceptable behaviours"

British cardiologists take a stand against bullying in the specialty

British societies BCS and BJCA publish a joint policy statement to stamp out bullying, harassment, and discrimination in the specialty, endorsed by 19 affiliated organisations.

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News • Survey results

Emergency departments seen as unsafe by both patients and professionals

Are emergency departments safe places? An international survey among both professionals and patients yields sobering results. Staff shortages and overcrowding were seen as main reasons.

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News • Infrastructure project

Improving lab accessibility for people with disabilities

Researchers at the University of East Anglia are launching a project to make laboratories more accessible for people with disabilities.

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Article • Neuro- and spine surgery

Perfection in the networked OR: robot, neuro-navigation and VR headsets

At their workplace, neurosurgeons often have to make compromises since most ORs were not designed with the specific needs of their discipline in mind. To address this issue the University Hospital in Essen, Germany, equipped an OR especially for neuro- and spine surgery. The aim is nothing less than revolutionizing the field with the help of digitalisation and cutting-edge technology.

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News • Atrial fibrillation

Night shift work could increase risk of heart problems

People who work night shifts are at increased risk of developing an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation (AF), according to research published in the European Heart Journal. The study is the first to investigate the links between night shift work and AF. Using information from 283,657 people in the UK Biobank database, researchers found that the longer and…

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Article • Gender and medical career

Neurosurgeon, wife and mother of three: breaking social bias against women

Running a neurosurgery department when you’re a woman is rare enough, but if on top of that you’re a mother of three, you’re an exception. You’re also living proof that it is possible to combine a demanding profession with the challenging task of bearing and raising children. Because there are still too little incentives that facilitate women’s professional development, a leading…

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Article • Getting rid of the clutter

Bringing digital pathology to the hospital environment

It is a simple image of two desks in a hospital pathology department, taken a matter of months apart. But there can be few more vivid images that illustrate the changing world of pathology as the specialty forges ahead into the digital era. The image was taken by Dr Solène-Florence Kammerer-Jacquet during the transition towards digital pathology at Rennes University Hospital in France in the…

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Video • Coping with Covid-19

How to work in the lab (while staying at home)

Inspired by remotely controlled surgical robots, professor and Vici laureate Jaime Gómez Rivas turned the corona crisis into an opportunity. He started to transform his lab into a remotely controlled experimental facility. And with success: the first paper based on entirely remote measurements is about to be published. ‘As soon as the lockdown began in March, I sat down and had a chat with my…

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News • Working environment

UK female surgeons report discrimination

More than half of female surgeons in the UK have faced or witnessed discrimination in the workplace, suggest the results of a confidential online poll, published in the online journal BMJ Open. Orthopaedics was seen as the most sexist of all the surgical specialties, the responses showed.

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News • Medical errors

Burnout in doctors has shocking impact on care

Burnout in doctors has devastating consequences on the quality of care they deliver, according to a large-scale systematic review and meta-analysis. The study, by experts at the Universities of Manchester, Keele, Leeds, Birmingham and Westminster, looks at 47 papers which together analyse the responses of 43,000 doctors. It finds that doctors with burnout are twice as likely to make mistakes,…

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News • Broken immune clock

Why shift work might be to blame for obesity and diabetes

About 15 million Americans don’t have a typical nine-to-five workday, and many of these—nurses, firefighters and flight attendants, among many other professions—may see their schedule change drastically one week to the next. As a result, these shift workers’ biological clocks, which keep track of the time of day, cannot keep accurate time, potentially making the negative effects of a high…

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Article • Automated tasks

Fast, efficient, cheaper microbiology diagnostics

A fully automated clinical microbiology laboratory system went into service at Heidelberg University Hospital this April. Produced by medical technology firm BD Life Science, this first installation at a German university hospital will play a major role in a study exploring the potential benefits of lab automation in containing the spread of pathogens in a hospital.

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Article • Digitisation

Pathology departs from a dark back room

A UK-based neuropathologist has highlighted how the digitisation of pathology will play a pivotal role in taking patient care on to a new and more efficient level. Speaking in a recent Webinar under the heading The Adoption and Benefits of Digital Pathology for Primary Diagnosis, Dr Daniel du Plessis also noted how the digital era would raise the profile of pathology and ‘bring it out of the…

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Article • Data sharing

The LAW of the Lab

First they fixed the cables to hard-wire a faster data transfer from laboratory instruments. Now a coalition of the largest manufacturers of lab equipment for patient diagnostic tests have agreed on shared protocols for how software should report results. This is the first update to international standards in 20 years.

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Sponsored • Best Places to Work

A laboratory fit for a future decade

Fostering a collaborative way of working won the UK’s Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust recognition as an elite public sector healthcare employer, recently judged one of the top 100 ‘Best Places to Work’. The trust, led by chief executive Susan Acott, has created an energy-driven, patient-focused culture within the hospital, reflected by staff at all levels. This has been the driving force…

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Sponsored • Automation

Scottish NHS group endorses automation

It’s thumbs up for Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics’ Aptio Automation, following a two-year deployment by Dundee-based National Health Service (NHS) Dundee, the first north European healthcare organisation to use the system to consolidate formerly siloed biochemistry, immunology, haematology and haemostasis testing onto a single automation track.

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