Empowered Nurses: A Win-Win Situation in Pediatric Critical Care

The atmosphere of a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is charged, fast paced, stressful, and tiring with emphasis on precision of care. Pediatric critical care nursing is still in its infancy stage in India and other low middle income countries. The lack of resources, staff shortage, migration and brain drain are persistent issues in India. There is lack of career advancement as well as exposure to research activities. Keeping these barriers in mind, over the years, we have adopted certain multipronged strategies in our PICU with the objective of empowering, and motivating our nursing personnel. We have been able to ‘build a horizontal team’ where each member feels wanted and works to his/her maximum capacity. This model of nurse empowerment may be reproduced by other institutions especially in low middle income countries that are also struggling with similar problems.

Effect of dual task activity on reaction time in males and females.

The present study was designed to compare the auditory and visual reaction time on an Audiovisual Reaction Time Machine with the concomitant use of mobile phones in 52 women and 30 men in the age group of 18- 40 years. Males showed significantly (p<0.05) shorter reaction times, both auditory and visual, than females both during single task and multi task performance. But the percentage increase from their respective baseline auditory reaction times, was more in men than women during multitasking, in hand held (24.38% & 18.70% respectively) and hands free modes (36.40% & 18.40% respectively) of the use of cell phone. VRT increased non significantly during multitasking in both the groups. However, the multitasking per se has detrimental effect on the reaction times in both the groups studied. Hence, it should best be avoided in crucial and high attention demanding tasks like driving.

Histogenesis of testicular parenchyma during prenatal life in buffalo / Histogénesis del parénquima testicular durante la vida intrauterina en el búfalo

The study was conducted on the testes of 18 buffalo foetii to reveal histogenesis and differentiation of different cells of testicular parenchyma. At 8.0 cm CVR (65 days) the seminiferous tubules were present at gonadal periphery and a network of polygonal mesenchymal cells was seen in the centre of testis. These tubules were surrounded by a distinct basement membrane and a single layer of peritubular cells at 10 cm CVR (74 days), which became double layered at 88.0 cm CVR (272 days). The testicular parenchyma at 12.0 cm CVR had two zones; outer zone having longitudinal tubules and inner zone having rounded tubules. But a reverse pattern of their arrangement was observed at 14.0 cm CVR (92 days). The pre-Sertoli cells were first observed in buffalo foetii of 8.0 cm CVR (65 days) in the periphery of seminiferous tubular epithelium whereas the gonocytes were demonstrable in the centre of tubules at 10.6 cm CVR (76 days). The fetal Leydig cells were also reported at 8.0 cm CVR (65 days) but at 14.0 cm CVR (92 days), the interstitium had considerably expanded due to the differentiation of mesenchymal cells into the Leydig cells.

El estudio fue realizado en los testículos de 18 fetos de búfalos, para revelar la histogénesis y diferenciación de las diferentes células de parénquima testicular. A los 8,0 cm de longitud corona-rabadilla (LCR) (65 días) los túbulos seminíferos estuvieron presentes en la periferia de la gónada y una red poligonal de células mesenquimales se observó en el centro del testículo. Estos túbulos estaban rodeados por una membrana basal y una sola capa de células peritubular a los 10 cm LCR (74 días), la cual se convirtió en una doble capa a los 88,0 cm LCR (272 días). El parénquima testicular a 12,0 cm LCR tenía dos zonas, zona exterior con túbulos longitudinales y zona interior con los túbulos redondeados transversalmente. Sin embargo, un patrón inverso en su disposición se observó a los 14,0 cm LCR (92 días). Las células pre-Sertoli se observaron primero en fetos de búfalos de 8,0 cm LCR (65 días) en la periferia del epitelio seminífero tubular, mientras que los gonocitos fueron visibles en el centro de los túbulos a 10,6 cm LCR (76 días). Las células de Leydig fetales también se observaron a los 8,0 cm LCR (65 días), pero a los 14,0 cm LCR (92 días), el intersticio tuvo una considerable expansión debido a la diferenciación de células mesenquimales en células de Leydig.

Evaluation of left ventricular performance in menopausal women.

The incidence of ischemic heart disease is well documented in the literature in post menopausal women but the degree of deterioration of left ventricular performance in estrogen deficient state in women is not very clear. The present study was conducted to find the left ventricular performance by recording systolic time intervals (STIs) in 50 post menopausal women having either natural or surgical menopause and that was compared with 25 premenopausal controls. There was significant (P<0.01) increase in QS2-I, PEP-I and PEP/LVET ratio but significant (P<0.01) decrease in LVETI in surgical menopause group whereas the natural menopause group showed less increase in QS2-I (P<0.05), PEP/LVET ratio (P<0.01) and decrease (P<0.01) in LVET-1. Thus, the performance of left ventricle is more affected in surgical menopause group as compared to natural menopause group. The ventricular dysfunction was observed by STIs prior to the appearance of clinical signs and symptoms.