Wrongful conception po raz pierwszy na wokandzie Sądu Najwyższego

The article closely analyses the very first wrongful conception action brought before the Polish Supreme Court in 2003. The court recognized the case as a precedent. When justifying its verdict it largely referred to the foreign case law and doctrine. The judgment clearly distinguished between the sheer fact of a baby being born as a generally positive event and the possible liability of a medical professional in wrongful conception cases, which allows for such cases to be heard before Polish courts. The judgment also established the scope of possible compensation as all expenses related to the pregnancy and birth and the loss of income stemming from them. Furthermore, the court established the right to seek moral compensation as a part of wrongful conception action claims. The judgment served as a trailblazer for future wrongful conception and wrongful birth verdicts.

EUTHANASIA - A CHOICE BETWEEN DEATH AND DEATH (THE VIEW OF EUROPE AND RUSSIA)

В современном научном дискурсе появляется много интересных тем, рассматривающих самые острые проблемы социума, и одна из них - табуированная тема - эвтаназия. Эта проблема носит междисциплинарный характер. Философы, в рамках биоэтики, осмысливают нравственные аспекты, психологи «решают» дилемму «хорошо/плохо», «убийство/самоубийство/гуманный акт помощи», юристы прорабатывают нормативно-правовые акты по защите, зачастую трудносовместимых, прав пациентов/врачей/выгодополучателей, медики, сталкиваясь с «невыносимой физической и психологической болью» пациентов и близких родственников, предлагают свои варианты решения проблемы, физики, химики, генетики не остаются в стороне, развивая нейротехнологии, регенеративную медицину, фармакологию, био- и генные технологии. Политики, разворачивая широкие дискуссии о морально-этической стороне этого вопроса, российском традиционализме, либеральных ценностях, устраивая политические дебаты, разрабатывают дивиденды. Социологи, рассматривая эту социальную проблему, замеряют «градус общественного мнения». Общество, как живой сложносоставной организм, опираясь на свои ментальные программы, реагирует по-разному: от полного неприятия («человеческая жизнь - божественный дар») до однозначной легализации процедуры «достойной смерти, качественной смерти». Одна из важных проблем медицинского профессионального сообщества - проблема обеспечения «достойной смерти» неизлечимо больных пациентов и связанная с ней проблема эвтаназии. Мнение полярно. На понимание медиками проблем легализации эвтаназии оказывают влияние разновекторные факторы: во-первых, ценностные установки, во-вторых, опыт и место работы (врачи паллиативных отделений, хосписов, онкологи, имеющие большой стаж работы, более склоны к легализации эвтаназии), в-третьих, техническое, технологическое, фармакологическое обеспечение медицинского учреждения, в-четвертых, нормативно-правовая составляющая. Many interesting topics appear in the modern scientific discourse. They consider the most acute problems of society and one of them is a taboo topic - euthanasia. This problem is of an interdisciplinary nature. Philosophers within the framework of bioethics comprehend the moral aspects. Psychologists "solve" the dilemma of "good/bad", "murder/suicide/humane act of assistance". Lawyers are working on regulatory legal acts to protect the rights of patients/doctors/beneficiaries, which are often difficult to replace. Doctors, facing the "unbearable physical and psychological pain" of patients and close relatives, offer their own solutions to the problem, physicists, chemists, geneticists do not stay away, developing neurotechnologies, regenerative medicine, pharmacology, bio and gene technologies. Politicians also do not stand aside, unfolding broad discussions, arranging political debates, developing dividends. Sociologists considering this social problem measure the "degree of public opinion". Society as a living complex organism relying on its mental programs reacts in different ways: from complete rejection to legalization of this procedure. One of the important problems of the medical professional community is the problem of ensuring a “dignified death” of terminally ill patients and the related problem of euthanasia. The opinion of doctors is polar. Doctor`s understanding of the problems of legalizing euthanasia is influenced by various factors: firstly, values, secondly, experience and place of work (doctors of palliative departments, hospices, oncologists with long work experience are more inclined to legalize euthanasia), thirdly, technical, technological, pharmacological support of a medical institution, and fourthly, the regulatory component

Quality-Based Evaluation of Patient-Facing Online Education Materials Regarding Facial Filler Procedures

Injectable facial fillers have become tremendously more popular in recent years, and the Internet offers a proportional amount of consumer-facing educational material. This study sought to explore the quality of these online materials. The top 20 Web sites offering educational materials about facial filler were identified via Google search and sorted by source: Medical Professional Boards, Hospitals and Providers, Medical News and Reference, and Fashion. The materials were assessed for overall quality with the validated DISCERN instrument. The authors also assessed understandability and actionability (Patient Education Material Assessment Tool - PEMAT), accuracy, comprehensiveness, and readability (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease). The mean DISCERN score was 46.9 ± 7.6, which is considered “fair” quality educational material; above “poor,” but below “good” and “excellent.” Understandability and actionability scores were low, particularly with respect to visual aids. The materials were generally accurate (76–99%), but scored poorly in comprehensiveness, as 15% failed to mention any risks/adverse effects and only 35% mentioned cost. On average, readability was at an 11th grade level, far more complex than ideal (< 6th grade level). Information disseminated from seemingly reputable sources such as professional boards and hospitals/providers were not of higher quality or superior in any of the above studied domains. In conclusion, online educational materials related to injectable facial fillers are of subpar quality, including those from academic and professional organizations. Visual aids were particularly weak. The facial rejuvenation community should make a concerted effort to set a higher standard for disseminating such information.

COVID-CLNet; COVID-19 Detection with Compressive Deep Learning Approaches

One of the most serious global health threats is COVID-19 pandemic. The emphasis on increasing the diagnostic capability helps stopping its spread significantly. Therefore, to assist the radiologist or other medical professional to detect and identify the COVID-19 cases in the shortest possible time, we propose a computer-aided detection (CADe) system that uses the computed tomography (CT) scan images. This proposed boosted deep learning network (CLNet) is based on the implementation of Deep Learning (DL) networks as a complementary to the Compressive Learning (CL). We utilize our inception feature extraction technique in the measurement domain using CL to represent the data features into a new space with less dimensionality before accessing the Convolutional Neural Network. All original features have been contributed equally to the new space using a sensing matrix. Experiments performed on different compressed methods show promising results for COVID-19 detection.

A machine-learning-based method for automatizing lattice-Boltzmann simulations of respiratory flows

Many simulation workflows require to prepare the data for the simulation manually. This is time consuming and leads to a massive bottleneck when a large number of numerical simulations is requested. This bottleneck can be overcome by an automated data processing pipeline. Such a novel pipeline is developed for a medical use case from rhinology, where computer tomography recordings are used as input and flow simulation data define the results. Convolutional neural networks are applied to segment the upper airways and to detect and prepare the in- and outflow regions for accurate boundary condition prescription in the simulation. The automated process is tested on three cases which have not been used to train the networks. The accuracy of the pipeline is evaluated by comparing the network-generated output surfaces to those obtained from a semi-automated procedure performed by a medical professional. Except for minor deviations at interfaces between ethmoidal sinuses, the network-generated surface is sufficiently accurate. To further analyze the accuracy of the automated pipeline, flow simulations are conducted with a thermal lattice-Boltzmann method for both cases on a high-performace computing system. The comparison of the results of the respiratory flow simulations yield averaged errors of less than 1% for the pressure loss between the in- and outlets, and for the outlet temperature. Thus, the pipeline is shown to work accurately and the geometrical deviations at the ethmoidal sinuses to be negligible.

Reflections of Healing Narratives

This narrative discusses research illustrating how writing assists patients in healing from both emotional and physical pain. An English professor and physical therapist collaborated to design a survey that uses writing prompts to assess goal setting for physical therapy patients. Advice for patients, such as keeping a pain journal of symptoms to share with a medical professional, demonstrates how writing helps the healing process while leading to collaboration between a patient and the medical team.

Biomedical Ethics

Chapter 9 addresses the duties of medical practitioners such as doctors and nurses, mostly in relation to patients, but also in respect of each other and their society. It argues that the relational moral theory is at least no worse than, and is often to be preferred over, more Western principles when it comes to how to understand several biomedical obligations. For example, the chapter maintains that the communal ethic makes good sense of whom a medical professional has moral reason to treat and for which purposes. It further contends that rightness as friendliness grounds moderate positions on abortion and euthanasia that many will find convincing but that utilitarianism and Kantianism have difficulty entailing and explaining. For example, if utilitarianism and Kantianism permit abortion, it is hard for them to avoid also permitting infanticide, but the relational ethic can more easily avoid that implication.

Associations of Medical Visits with Dentist Visits: A Register-Linkage Study of a Working-Age Population in Finland

Studies have usually addressed the utilization of either medical or dental services, and less is known about how medical and dentist visits are associated. As oral health is linked to systemic health, knowledge on care coordination between dental and medical services is important to gain understanding of the overall functioning of health care. Register data on 25–64-year-old residents of the city of Oulu, Finland, were used for the years 2017–2018 (N = 91,060). Logit models were estimated to analyze the probability of dentist visits, according to the number of medical visits in total and by three separate health care sectors. The majority, 61%, had visited both a medical professional and a dentist. All sectors combined, as few as one to two visits increased the odds of dentist visits (OR: 1.43, CI: 1.33, 1.53). When separated by medical professionals’ health care sectors, for one to two visits, the strongest association was found with public (OR: 1.17, CI: 1.12, 1.22) and private sector (OR: 1.35, CI: 1.30, 1.41). For occupational health service visits, the odds increased only after six or more visits. The results support the idea of integrated medical and dental care. However, the result may also arise from individual health behavior where health-conscious persons seek both medical and dental care independently.