Role of agile leadership in managing inter-role conflicts for a satisfying job and life during COVID-19 in a VUCA world.

This study investigated how agile leadership played its role in managing inter-role conflicts during the chaotic period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic was much more than the survival of the fittest and coming out of it alive. Organizations were under immense pressure to resume their normal operations in not-so-normal situations. This period of turmoil and agony brought a broad array of inter-role conflicts, which posed challenges for leaders to manage them effectively. The satisfaction at job and the satisfaction in life were the two most important endeavors for the employees to fight. This study explores how leadership agility helped employees manage their work-family and family-work conflicts, consequently impacting life satisfaction and job satisfaction simultaneously. Moreover, role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload are important intervening role stress factors that impact inter-role conflict management. So, role stress is a moderating factor in the direct relationship between agile leadership and inter-role conflict. This is a two-phased time lag study with a quantitative design for data collection. The first phase of data collection comprises of analyzing the impact of agile leadership on inter-role conflict management, keeping in view the intervening impact of role stress. The second data collection phase examines how inter-role conflicts impacted life satisfaction and job satisfaction during COVID-19. The data were collected from faculty working in higher education institutions in Pakistan, as the education industry was the second major sector that was affected because of COVID-19 after the health care industry. This research found that agile leadership plays a significant role in determining job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Agile leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic helped to manage work-family (AgileL -> WFC -> JS ß = 0.1020, p = 0.0112 and AgileL -> WFC -> LS ß = 0.1361, p = 0.0014) and family-work conflicts (AgileL -> FWC -> JS ß = 0.1598, p = 0.0017 and AgileL -> FWC -> LS ß = 0.1160, p = 0.0093) and reduce role stress. Future researchers might include marital satisfaction, as the inter-role conflicts highly impacted marital satisfaction and resultant imbalances among dual-earning couples. Comparative studies in this regard, explaining how dual-earning couples managed to sustain marital health and the role of leadership in developed and developing countries would be enlightening.

Fibromatosis of infratemporal space.

Fibromatosis is a rare benign mesenchymal neoplasm which primarily originates in the muscle, connective tissue, fascial sheaths, and musculoaponeurotic structures. It is commonly seen as abdominal tumour but in maxillofacial region, the occurrence of these tumours is very rare and exceedingly rare in infratemporal space. Often misdiagnosed due to its varied clinical behaviour, fibromatosis is benign, slow-growing, infiltrative tumour without any metastatic potential, but is locally aggressive causing organ dysfunction along with high recurrence rate. We report a case of fibromatosis involving the left infratemporal space in a 35-year-old female who presented with chief complaint of limited mouth opening for the preceding 4 years.

Massive leiomyosarcoma of the maxilla.

Leiomyosarcoma is a malignant smooth-muscle tumour that is exceedingly rare in the head and neck region. Presenting signs and symptoms of leiomyosarcoma in the orofacial region are generally nonspecific. The tumour is commonly encountered as a slow growing, discreet firm, and non-ulcerated painless mass. We presented a case of massive leiomyosarcoma of the midface which might be the first leiomyosarcoma of midface reported in Pakistan so far to our knowledge. We also discuss the diagnosis and treatment of leiomyosarcoma in this aspect.

Health equity issues at the local level: socio-geography, access, and health outcomes in the service area of the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer-Haiti.

BACKGROUND: Although health equity issues at regional, national and international levels are receiving increasing attention, health equity issues at the local level have been virtually overlooked. Here, we describe here a comprehensive equity assessment carried out by the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer-Haiti (HAS) in 2003. HAS has been operating health and development programs in the Artibonite Valley of Haiti for 50 years. METHODS: We reviewed all available information arising from a comprehensive evaluation of the programs of HAS carried out in 1999 and 2000. As part of this evaluation, two demographic and health surveys were carried out. We carried out exit interviews with clients receiving primary health care, observations within health facilities, interviews with households related to quality of care, and focus group discussions with community-based health workers. A special study was carried out in 2003 to assess factors determining the use of prenatal care services. Finally, selected findings were obtained from the HAS information system. RESULTS: We found markedly reduced access to health services in the peripheral mountainous areas compared to the central plains. The quality of services was more deficient and the coverage of key services was lower in the mountains. Finally, health status, as measured by under-five mortality rates and levels of childhood malnutrition, was also worse in the mountains. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that local health programs need to give attention to monitoring the health status as well as the quality and coverage of basic services among marginalized groups within the program service area. Health inequities will not be overcome until such monitoring occurs and leaders of health programs ensure that inequities identified are addressed in the local programming of activities. It is quite likely that, within relatively small geographic areas in resource-poor settings around the world, similar, if not even greater, levels of health inequities exist. These inequities need to be measured and addressed in order for health programs to achieve equity and maximum improvement in health status within the population.

Detection of carcinogenic human papillomavirus in specimens collected with a novel self-sampling device.

We compared the detection of carcinogenic human papillomavirus DNA in cervicovaginal specimens self-collected using a novel device to the detection in physician-collected cervical specimens from 137 women. The kappa value was 0.66 (95% confidence interval, 0.53 to 0.78), with an 83% overall test agreement and a 68% positive test agreement.

Preliminary evaluation of a cervical self-sampling device with liquid-based cytology and multiparameter molecular testing.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the collection of a liquid-based cell sample using a cervical self-sampling device and traditional sampling using cytologic and molecular-based tests. STUDY DESIGN: This study evaluated the sampling efficiency of the Fournier Cervical Self-Sampling Device (BPG, LLC, Miami, Florida) with regard to overall cell volume of the sample, cytologic diagnoses Path, TriPath Imaging, Burlington, North Carolina) and molecular-based tests for Chlamydia, Gonorrhoeae and human papillomavirus (Hybrid Capture 2, Digene Corp., Gaithersburg, Maryland). Paired samples were blinded and prepared using the SurePath method. RESULTS: The self-collected samples showed an overall increase in cellularity when compared to the cellularity of samples obtained from traditional sampling. Cytologic results were comparable for the 2 sampling methods. The self-sampling device showed greater sensitivity with regard to molecular-based human papillomavirus testing. CONCLUSION: The Fournier Device shows promise in the area of cytology and molecular diagnostics. The ability to perform cytology and molecular-based assays using a single sample obtained directly by the patient can lower the costs of screening and provide an efficient method of screening women in resource-poor countries or when cultural barriers exist to the use of traditional sampling methods.