[Analysis of functioning of two-person primary care emergency medical team - single-centre study].

OBJECTIVE: Introduction: Under the Act on State Emergency Medicine System, an emergency medical team consists of at least two members, including a specialist system nurse or paramedic, who have the license to perform medical rescue activities. However, this does not exclude the possibility of expanding the team. In practice, however, it appears that in most cases a head of healthcare institution decides to have teams with a number of members limited to two persons in which a paramedic or nurse also fulfil the function of a driver. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials rial and methods: An originally designed questionnaire was used to collect data. The sample group included 138 employees working in two-person emergency medical teams at the Regional Ambulance Station in Poznan. RESULTS: Results: Over half of the subjects (N=90; 65,2%) rarely requests assistance from another emergency medical team as support in intervention, however, when transporting patients such teams are often assisted by patients' families (N=129; 93,5%). The patient's weight is one of the most frequently cited reasons for using such assistance. Every third respondent knows standards on weight limits for manual transport. 77,5 % of respondents believe that the Act on State Emergency Medicine should be amended by increasing the minimum number of members in primary care emergency medical teams from two to three. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: It may be concluded that formation of two-person teams constitutes an infringement of occupational health and safety regulations on manual transport, which increases the risk of injury occurrence.

A comparison of performance of endotracheal intubation using the Levitan FPS optical stylet or Lary-Flex videolaryngoscope in morbidly obese patients.

INTRODUCTION: The use of videolaryngoscopes is recommended for morbidly obese patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the Levitan FPS optical stylet (Levitan) vs Lafy-Flex videolaryngoscope (Lary-Flex) in a group of MO patients. METHODS: Seventy-nine MO (BMI > 40 kg m(-2)) patients scheduled for bariatric surgery were included in the study and randomly allocated to the Levitan FPS or Lary-Flex group. The primary endpoint was time to intubation and evaluation laryngoscopic of glottic view. Anesthesiologists were asked to evaluate the glottic view first under direct laryngoscopy using the videolaryngoscope as a standard laryngoscope (monitor display was excluded from use) and then using devices. The secondary endpoint was the cardiovascular response to intubation and the participant's evaluation of such devices. RESULTS: The time to intubation was 8.572.66 sec. versus 5.790.2 sec. for Levitan and Lary-Flex, respectively (P < 0.05). In all cases of CL grade >1 under direct laryngoscopy, the study devices improved CL grade to 1. The Levitan FPS produced a greater cardiovascular response than the Lary-Flex videolaryngoscope. CONCLUSION: The Lary-Flex videolaryngoscope and the Levitan FPS optical stylet improve the laryngeal visualization in morbidly obese patients, allowing for fast endotracheal intubation, but Lary-Flex produces less cardiovascular response to intubation attempt.

An Organic Vortex Laser.

Optical vortex beams are at the heart of a number of novel research directions, both as carriers of information and for the investigation of optical activity and chiral molecules. Optical vortex beams are beams of light with a helical wavefront and associated orbital angular momentum. They are typically generated using bulk optics methods or by a passive element such as a forked grating or a metasurface to imprint the required phase distribution onto an incident beam. Since many applications benefit from further miniaturization, a more integrated yet scalable method is highly desirable. Here, we demonstrate the generation of an azimuthally polarized vortex beam directly by an organic semiconductor laser that meets these requirements. The organic vortex laser uses a spiral grating as a feedback element that gives control over phase, handedness, and degree of helicity of the emitted beam. We demonstrate vortex beams up to an azimuthal index l = 3 that can be readily multiplexed into an array configuration.