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The oldest textual variant of the Russian religious folk song “Forty pilgrims and one more pilgrim” dates from the mid-eighteenth century. The song is a special type of apology, produced by pilgrims for their own laudation and glorification, with the intention to raise the respect of people for them. The wife of the Grand Prince of Kiev wanted to commit adultery with the spiritual leader of the pilgrims, for which God punished her with a severe disease, most probably with leper. The symptoms of the wife’s disease and the circumstances of her recovery indicate that the pneuma-theory, the most ancient concept of the origin of diseases, was familiar to the Russians. In connection to the religious songs analyzed in my paper I found medical practices similar to those in Hungarian folk culture and in the ancient medicine of the Lamaist Tibet. On the basis of this, it can be claimed that the disease of the wife of the Grand Prince was caused by some internal or external “evil wind”. Consequently, the treatment was connected to the wind as well.
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The Article aims to show the need to properly understand the role of social work in selected broader contexts of its activity. Based upon its definition and those of the fields of activity such as charitable, missionary, developmental and humanitarian activities, the Article clarifies how social work is incorporated there, by preserving its identify as well as their specific character, without exchanging, overlapping or neglecting social work in any of them.
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The aim of this study is to determine the affect of hidden curriculum on empathy which is one of the skills of medical professionalism. This study was carried out with the students who began their education in 2009-2010 academic year. The empathy levels of the students were evaluated with Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy when they were in the first, third and the sixth class. The research started with 296 students and completed with 151. The scores by years were 102.0±14.2, 103.2±12.7 and 102.1±12.0 respectively. No differences were found between the scores of the students in first and third year; first and sixth year; third and sixth year. There was no difference between the scale scores of male and female students by years.The result of our study shows that the empathic skills do not increase in the way that is expected within the hidden curriculum.
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Pope Francis, during his pontifi cate, has very clearly spoken as regards the defense of life, the importance of the natural family, criticizing what he called “the culture of waste”. Thinking about it, we must consider not only the rejection of material things but also marginalization and rejection of people, especially weak, which appear unnecessary to society. This “culture of waste” tends to become the common mentality that infects everyone. Human life, the person is no longer perceived as a primary value to be respected and protected, especially if poor or disabled, if not yet useful – such as the unborn child – or no longer needed – such as the elderly. The Pope sees in the rejection of life marked by suff ering or considered useless, the eloquent expression of the “culture of waste”, which permeates many societies in various parts of the world. In his speeches often it echoes the vigorous “no” to abortion and euthanasia.
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The combination of advanced neuro-navigation, 3D multi-modality image fusion and intra-operative MRI can fulfill the promise of an integrated image guidance system for neurosurgery. The concept of MRI-guided neurosurgery is now widely accepted and preliminary evidence suggests that MRI guidance greatly improves the safety and effectiveness of neurosurgical procedures. The application of intra-operative MRI is especially helpful in the surgical excision of low grade gliomas (tumor resection control). Among the currently developed thermal therapy methods, focused ultrasound (FUS) appears to be the most promising method for non-invasive neurosurgery.
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In Poland there are 44 towns with spa status, which provide services with a wide range of spa treatment. In fact, there are many factors, which affect functioning and development of spa services. This paper is an attempt to describe the organizational and legal circumstances of spa development.
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Health care institutions just as other companies operating on the market are subject to numerous threats. Authors put emphasis on diagnosing the factors conducive to the development of problematic situations in the areas of image (identity), human resources, quality management and outsourcing in health care institutions. Article doesn’t give solutions but hint, and points out critical areas of organizations that should be monitored to prevent, diagnose, develop and deploy new solutions including the elimination of potential risks.
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The adoption of Information Technologies (IT) in healthcare industry in Poland is a long-range process requiring synergic, multilateral actions. Significant responsibility in this area is put on staff training prospective healthcare managers at every level (director, head of a ward, head of nursing). Managers should understand the role and have knowledge of IT systems, and be able to convince their administrative and medical staff to use them. Students educated in medical professions and related to healthcare management and administration are aware of advantages and unavoidability of IT progress, and are keen to enhance their knowledge in this domain. It results in conclusion that it is necessary to train future healthcare managers and professionals in the IT area more extensively.
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The medical profession and the healthcare industry are undergoing dynamic change in their size, scope, diversity, and nature. This volatile market environment contributes to the already comparatively difficult task of transferring a complex, highly regulated professional services enterprise for which intangible assets, such as professional and practice goodwill, are often the primary components of value. The paper deals with the key approaches and methodologies applied to valuation of medical practices.
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Purpose of this paper is the comparative analysis of the health protection expenditures in Poland and other countries of the European Union. The analysis was concentrated on two basic indicators showing the level of the health protection financing: total expenditure on health protection as percentage of GDP and per capita total expenditure on health protection at international dollar rate. One examined also the participation of public and private expenditures in financing of the health protection in countries of EU. The analysis includes 2000 and 2004 Years. The level of the health protection expenditures, on both in the account to GDP and in per capita, was in examined years in countries of EU diverse, especially large disproportions appeared in the seizure per capita. The health protection financing in Poland to with other countries characterizes the extra-low level, both absolute rates (per capita expenditures in USD) as and relative (percentage of GDP) locate our country on final positions among countries of EU. Poland locates high only in case of the participation of private expenditures in entire expenditures on the health protection.
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Fraud present an immense problem for health insurance companies and the only way to fight fraud is by using specialized fraud management systems. The current research community focussed great efforts on different fraud detection techniques while neglecting other also important activities of fraud management. We propose a holistic approach that focuses on all 6 activities of fraud management, namely, (1) deterrence, (2) prevention, (3) detection, (4) investigation, (5) sanction and redress, and (6) monitoring. The main contribution of the paper are 15 key characteristics of a fraud management system, which enable construction of a fraud management system that provides effective and efficient support to all fraud management activities. We base our research on literature review, interviews with experts from different fields, and a case study. The case study provides additional confirmation to expert opinions, as it puts our holistic framework into practice.
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Every human being wants to live to a happy old age and to maintain, as long as possible, both physical and psychological (mental) fitness. The elderly wish to enjoy the fruits of their work, family, and kindness in a pleasant environment. People preserve such expectations in all stages of life. This scenario is often the case, but not always, as life events are not easy to predict. One notices that the many achievements of medical science – various forms of healing, therapy and rehabilitation – on a practical level, apply only to a part of the elderly community. The processes of becoming old are irreversible. Various difficulties, illnesses and infirmities make an imprint on most people, so that, instead of reverence and respect, the elderly quite often encounter not only indifference, but open aversion and hostility. Such situations call for positive attitudes toward the elderly to correct them. It would be helpful to remember that each individual makes life’s pilgrimage from youth, through maturity, to life’s autumn. This self-awareness should produce better attitudes toward those who have already experienced what is our future.
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Aim: The aim of this research is to examine whether the level of work engagement differs depending on the hospital type and hospital location, and on some socio-demographic and occupational characteristics of the health personnel.Method: The research sample group consists of 659 non-physician employees working in three training and research hospitals, two state hospitals, one special-branch hospital in Istanbul and one state hospital in Kırklareli. The UWES-17 scale developed by Schaufeli et al. (2002) was used to measure the level of work engagement. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used to analyze the factor structure of the scale. Analysis of the research data was performed with SPSS 23 and AMOS 23 software. Findings: Whereas the level of work engagement differs significantly depending on the socio-demographic and occupational characteristics of the employees and hospital location, it doesn't significantly differ depending on the hospital type.Result: The health personnel working in a hospital located in a smaller city which suffers less from urban problems like busy traffic and high patient density, has a significantly higher level of work engagement compared to those working in hospitals in Istanbul
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Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors that severely encumber daily functioning. OCD patients seem to exhibit sleep disturbances, especially delayed bedtimes that reflect disrupted circadian rhythmicity. Morningness–eveningness is a fundamental factor reflecting individual variations in diurnal preferences related to sleep and waking activities. Eveningness reflecting a delayed sleep–wake timing has repeatedly been associated with sleep problems and negative affect (NA). Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the associations between morningness–eveningness, sleep complaints, and symptom severity in OCD patients and compared with a mixed psychiatric control group. Materials and methods: The data of 49 OCD and 49 mixed psychiatric inpatients (with unipolar depression and anxiety disorders) were analyzed. Patients completed questionnaires regarding morningness–eveningness, sleep quality, nightmare frequency, depression, anxiety, and affective states. Obsessive and compulsive symptom severity was also assessed within the OCD group by clinician-rated scales. Results: Eveningness preference was associated with impaired sleep quality and higher NA in OCD patients. In addition, impaired sleep quality showed a moderate correlation with anxiety and strong correlations with depressive symptoms and NA. Interestingly, in the mixed psychiatric group, eveningness was not linked to NA, and sleep quality also showed weaker associations with depressive symptoms and NA. Within the OCD group, eveningness preference was predictive of poorer sleep quality regardless the influence of depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that eveningness and sleep complaints are predictive of affective dysfunctions, and should be carefully considered in the evaluation and treatment of OCD patients.
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Most individuals with hoarding disorder (HD) are prone to excessively acquiring new possessions. Understanding the factors that contribute to this collecting behavior will allow us to develop better treatment approaches for HD. The aim of this study was to test our assumption that an anxious attachment style is associated with a tendency to anthropomorphize comforting objects and an inability to tolerate distress, which in turn leads to excessive acquisition. Methods: A total of 361 participants with subclinical to clinical acquisition problems (77.8% female) completed a series of self-report measures. Results: As expected, greater anxious attachment was related to greater distress intolerance and stronger tendencies to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. In turn, greater distress intolerance and anthropomorphism were related to more excessive buying and greater acquisition of free items. Examination of the pathways and indirect effects showed support for double mediation rather than serial mediation, as distress intolerance did not predict anthropomorphism. Discussion and conclusion: These novel findings, if replicated, suggest that adding treatment modules that target improving distress tolerance and reducing anthropomorphism to standard treatment for HD may lead to further reductions in excessive acquiring.
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Against the background of a wider bioethical question about the right to technologically interfere in human life, the author in this article asks what life in (irreversible) coma is and whether the dignity of a person in such a state still exists. The starting point for these reflections is the fact referred to by numerous world media every now and then, namely the birth of a child from a mother deemed to have been in the state of brain death. The Italian case is a story of a doctor maintaining that a child was born of a woman in the state of homeostasis for two months (which is very long from the medical point of view). But there is also a Hungarian case, where a child was born three months after the brain death of the mother had been recognized. Also in the Italian case that mother was moved to the operating theatre immediately after the delivery with the view of having her organs removed for donation. According to the author this opens a new bioethical dimension for the question of determining what irreversible coma is and when organs from a person in such a condition can be removed. It must be reflected whether objective and absolute certainty exists, that the equipment maintaining the state of homeostasis (for such a long time) does not support the life of a person as a human (cf. the question of returning to life after being in the state of clinical death), but instead only the life of particular organs? In other words: does “gravidanza post-mortem” (“pregnancy after death” – as bioethicists in Italy put it) – have ethical justification.
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German Romantic medicine is an area almost unknown to Polish humanists. The topic had been absent in Polish historiography of medicine until 1989 and the concept had remained unknown. The situation changed in the nineties with an opportunity of long-term research over the European history of science for Polish scholars. The base for the research was both the Western historiography standard and original sources from the era. A monograph published 1999 followed by a second extended edition in 2007 and a series of publications were a result of the research in German libraries conducted as a part of KBN, DAAD and DFG funds. Those publications offered Polish recipients the ideas of German Romantic medicine in their historic and historiographic perspective. The majority of Polish medical students received their Masters or Doctorate diplomas at German universities in nineteenth century so the goal of the research was to investigate an attitude of Polish academia towards the German Romantic standard. It was shown that the attitude was unequivocally negative during the period when this standard was predominant at German universities (1797–1848) and after that in historical analyses. The goal of the article is to present the general characteristic of German Romantic medicine and Polish academia’s attitude towards it until 1863.
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Romantic culture can be really considered a predecessor of anti-psychiatry movement which in the 1960s united the opponents of institutional psychiatry recognized as the tool of social control. To achieve this I analyse chosen texts by doctors practicing in the first half of nineteenth century (such as Józef Jakubowski). They include stories reporting visits at asylums popular in the press then and Ludwik Sztyrmer’s novels (Frenofagiusz i Frenolesty of 1843 and a part of a thirteen years older Sleepless night [Noc Bezsenna]). By confronting these press materials with the dogma of moral therapy dominant at that time I formulate the thesis that while the numerous portraits of madmen and madwomen in Romantic literature may indeed contain some intuitions similar to those of anti-psychiatrists, the same cannot be said about the images of asylums, which definitely formed a part of the discourse where madness was a label enabling an exclusion of inconvenient individuals.
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