The Association of Passive Smoking and Serum Urotensin-II Levels in Children.

Urotensin-II (UT-II) is the most powerful vasoconstrictor agent and is known to play a role in heart failure, diabetes, pulmonary hypertension and asthma. The effect of passive smoking on UT-II levels is unknown. The present study aims to evaluate serum UT-II levels in children exposed to passive smoke. The study included a total of 120 children; 47 children not exposed to passive smoke were included in Group 1 (control group), and 73 children exposed to passive smoke were included in Group 2. Serum samples of the participants were stored at -80 °C after centrifugation and were assessed at least two times with high-precision human ELISA kits. Serum UT-II levels were significantly higher in the children exposed to passive smoke than in the children not exposed. Furthermore, Group 2 was grouped according to the number of cigarettes smoked at home per day, type of passive smoking (second-hand smoke or third-hand smoke), and how many people in their family and/or living together smoked. There was a positive correlation between the number of cigarettes they were exposed to per day and serum UT-II levels. Passive smoking in childhood may be associated with high serum UT-II levels.

The self-assessment of newly graduated orthopedic surgeons on essential surgical procedures.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the self-confidence of newly graduated orthopedic surgeons on performing essential surgi- cal procedures. METHODS: The study included 151 orthopedics and traumatology surgeons who had completed their (orthopedics and traumatology) training within the last year. They were asked to complete an online questionnaire which was available from February 2020 to May 2021. In the questionnaire, newly graduated orthopedic surgeons were asked whether they could do the 18 listed essential adult and 8 listed essential pediatric cases independently. They were asked about patient follow-up systems and who these were supervised by, the demo- graphic data of the city and about the institution they were trained in, and how many times they performed the listed surgeries during their training. RESULTS: 74 (49%) of the participants received their training in training and research hospitals, 69 (45.7%) in state university hospitals, and 8 (5.3%) in foundation university hospitals. More than 80% of the participants answered, "I can do it independently" for 13 (81.6%) out of 16 adult cases and 7 (87.5%) out of 8 paediatric cases. The average self-efficacy score of the participants was 32.22 out of 36 for adult cases and 15.3 out of 16 for paediatric cases. The total average self-efficacy score was 47.52 out of 52. CONCLUSION: This study has shown us that newly graduated orthopedic surgeons have the self-confidence to handle many of the essential types of cases independently.