Conscientious objection – does it also apply to nursing students?

The conscientious clause in nursing can be defined as a kind of special ethical and legal regulation which gives nurses right to object to actively perform certain medical procedures which are against their personal system of values. Usually these values are associated with nurses’ religious beliefs, but not always. Scope of this regulation differs throughout the world. However, it is emphasized that right to the conscientious objection is not absolute and this regulation can not be used in cases of danger to life or serious damage to the health of the patient. Medical procedures to which nurses hold conscientious objection are often within reproductive health services. However, we can also find reports on the use of this right i.e. in end-of-life care and in the process of the implementation of medical experiments. The main issue underlined in the discussion regarding practising conscientious objection in the clinical setting is the collision of two human rights: the right to conscientious objection of medical personnel and the right of patients to specific medical procedures which are legal in their country. If a procedure is legally available in a country it means that patients can expect to receive it, on the other hand, all citizens, including health care workers, have the right to protect their moral identity and the right to object to the implementation of a procedure to which they have a specific objection. It is very difficult to find good ethical and legal balance between these two perspectives

Academic careers: the value of individual mentorship on research career progression

The paper discusses how individual mentoring may impact positively on career pathway development for potential and future clinical academic researchers in nursing and allied health professions. Methods: The paper draws on a number of data sources and methodologies in order to fulfil the aims. Firstly, international literature provides an insight into mentoring processes and impact on career development. This is followed by a review of the mentoring experiences based on a UK study on the professorial populations in nursing and allied health professions. The final section reports on results of interviews with early and advanced researchers on their experiences of mentoring. Results: Individual mentoring is valued highly by health care professionals at all stages of career development. It is considered particularly useful when people are in transition towards a more challenging career role.Individuals in receipt of mentoring both formal and informal, report improved confidence in their cability to achieve their career goals. Mentees report improved levels of competence achieved through knowledge aquisition, networking and ability to probelm solve. Conclusions/Summary: Mentoring is considered an important process for health care professionals at all stages of their career. Opportunities to access and receive mentoring support for health care staff in the UK remain limited and sporadic in nature. There are examples of excellent mentoring schemes in place within some institutons and organisations but a national strategy to support mentoring has yet to be developed Key words: Clinical academic careers, mentoring, nursing, allied health profession

Developmental trends in requests rendered by EFL speakers in Poland

The primary concern in this paper is with developmental issues in EFL learners’ interlanguage (acquisitional) pragmatics (ILP) in Poland, operationalized as rendering requests. It discusses selected findings of a longitudinal study lasting for three years and relying on data collected among 57 EFL learners by means of a written discourse completion task of an open response format. The data collected in the third year (Y3) of the study indicate that even if these EFL students make correct judgments of sociopragmatic factors involved in a particular scenario, selecting appropriate pragmalinguistic forms remains problematic to them. This is hypothesized to be a result of transfer from their mother tongue and/or lack of corrective instruction. However, positive developments towards the target language pragmatic competence were also observed, that is a greater diversification of the requestive strategies used, fewer grounders and a higher frequency of certain internal mitigation features

Impoliteness in interlanguage requests of EFL learners in Poland

This study intends to expand the range of studies on the acquisition of pragmatic competence in English as a foreign language, with special attention paid to impoliteness. It examines the development of one component of learner interlanguage pragmatics, i.e., requests, and looks for acquisitional patterns in modifying their impositive force in advanced Polish learners of English. A sample of linguistic written data was collected in a longitudinal study by means of a discourse completion task (DCT). The author seeks evidence of impoliteness by examining alerters, external moves, internal mitigation, together with strategies for expressing the directness of requests. On this basis, conclusions about noticeable impoliteness in the interlanguage pragmatic competence of the participants are drawn.Niegrzeczność w prośbach formułowanych przez Polaków uczących się języka angielskiego jako obcego.Celem artykułu jest poszerzenie stanu wiedzy na temat nabywania kompetencji  pragmatycznej w języku angielskim jako obcym ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem  niegrzeczności językowej. Autorka analizuje jeden komponent pragmatyki interjęzykowej,  tj. prośby – dyrektywne akty mowy, i doszukuje się tendencji charakterystycznych  dla Polaków uczących się tego języka w obrębie strategii użytych do wyrażenia  prośb oraz środków modyfikujących ich dolegliwość (ang. imposition). Dane  językowe zebrano w badaniu podłużnym za pomocą kwestionariusza sytuacyjnego.  Analiza próśb skupia się na przejawach niegrzeczności językowej na czterech poziomach:  powitania, strategie wyrażania bezpośredniości próśb, wewnętrzne i zewnętrzne  środki modyfikujące. Na tej podstawie autorka wyciąga wnioski na temat  tendencji rozwojowych w kompetencji pragmatycznej uczestników badania w obrębie  niegrzeczności językowej. 

Effect of Pluronics and surfactant adsorption onto dolomite suspension zeta potential and stability

Two kinds of Pluronics (PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymers) were used in these studies. They have mixed with anionic surfactant (sodium oleate). The adsorption isotherms of surfactant and copolymer-surfactant mixture onto dolomite have been determined.The adsorbed amount of the Pluronics increases with increasing concentration and reaches plateau. An increase of adsorbed amounts of anionic surfactant onto the mineral surfaces (dolomite) has been observed at the presence of Pluronic copolymers. The adsorption effect of triblock copolymers has been investigated on the zeta potential of dolomite at the water suspension. The interaction of anionic surfactant with copolymers causes a decrease of zeta potential to small amount due to the deformation of double electrical layer. The adsorbed non-ionic Pluronic layer partially screens the surface charge of mineral particles, and thus, reduces the zeta potential. On the other hand, the adsorption of anionic surfactant and copolymer caused a decrease of negative value of zeta potential both investigated minerals. The stability of dolomite suspension depends on the both copolymer and sodium oleate concentrations

Chemical and phycological structure of surface microlayer and subsurface water in a southern Baltic Sea estuary

The surface microlayer of water (SML) is a unique ecotone found on all water bodies. It is an interphase for the exchange of matter between the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. This ecotone is capable of accumulating chemicals and microorganisms in amounts as high as 100-fold greater than those observed in the pelagic zone. Here we report on the accumulation of chemicals and phytoneuston in the SML of the estuarial Łebsko Lake located at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the unpolluted region of the World Biosphere Reserve: the Słowínski National Park in Poland. The physicochemical parameters and phytoplankton composition from the SML (thickness of 242± 40μm) were compared with those in subsurface water layers (SUB; 15 cm under the surface). A wide spectrum of chemical and microbiological analyses was performed to investigate the capacity to accumulate substances. Almost all analyzed trace metals (Al, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Ba, Pb), biogenic substances such as forms of phosphorus and nitrogen as well as chlorophyll a, pheophytin, and heterotrophic bacteria were detected at higher levels in SML than in SUB. Also, a greater number of taxa and higher abundance and biomass of phytoplankton were found in SML than in SUB. In contrast, some chemical parameters such as salinity components (Cl–, SO2– 4, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+) as well as pH occurred at a comparable level in SML and SUB. Physicochemical factors such as components of salinity in freshwater, brackish, and marine areas determined taxonomic composition, abundance, and biomass of phytoplankton and phytoneuston. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated the most significant chemical factors, such as nutrients and essential metals, affecting phytoplankton composition in the analyzed water layers. The degree of water salinity, chemical components such as metals, nutrients of water, and lotic and lentic environments influenced the qualitative and quantitative parameters of the phytoplankton and phytoneuston; hence, the common occurrence of resistant species such as Desmodesmous communis in the studied estuary and those characteristic of freshwater occurring only in the river stand, e. g., Woronichinia naegeliana and, for example, Chaetoceros decipiens occurring only in the sea

Stress urinary incontinence after labor and satisfaction with sex life

Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess the incidence of stress urinary incontinence in women after labor, its determinants, and to establish its effect on women’s satisfaction with their sex lives.  Material and methods: The research implemented the Gaudenz-Incontinence-Questionnaire and the Sexual Quality of Life-Female scale (SQoL-F). The principal inclusion criterion was the time of 3 to 6 months after labor.  Results: The research was carried out amongst 193 women. Thirty-two of the participants (16.6%) showed symptoms of stress urinary incontinence after labor that were statistically correlated with the number of experienced labors (p = 0.044) and the newborn’s weight (p = 0.016). The participants’ sex life satisfaction was on average 75.47 ± 24.68. The respondents suffering from stress urinary incontinence obtained a significantly lower (p = 0.006) average score for general sex life satisfaction (64.38 ± 26.15) when compared with women without symptoms of stress urinary incontinence (77.67 ± 23.86).  Conclusions: The problem of incontinence after labor affected one in six women. Occupation, number of pregnancies, damage to the perineum during labor, and the infant’s birth weight significantly dependent on the incontinence occurrence after labor. The onset of incontinence symptoms in women in the reproductive age has an adverse effect on their sex life satisfaction