The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon was founded as a scientific journal in 1953, making it one of the oldest publications in this specialty. Bearing the original title Thoraxchirurgie, its first language of publication was German. Although the primary focus lay on thoracic surgery, the concomitantly developing specialty cardiac surgery was also well represented from the start, finally taking over the lead in submissions. After having changed its name to Thoraxchirurgie, Vaskuläre Chirurgie in 1963, it became the official journal of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in 1973. With the language of publication having turned into English in 1979, the final title came into effect. This report gives an overview over 60 years of continued development. The history of this journal illustrates not only the transformations of the surgical disciplines reflected but also those of scientific publishing.
BackgroundDue to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, healthcare workers (HCWs) are experiencing tremendous levels of emotional and physical stress. Hospitals are trying to help personnel cope with work-related pressure. The aim of this study was to assess HCWs’ awareness and utilization of counseling and support services during the pandemic, HCWs’ unmet counseling and support needs, and the type and content of these services.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted from January to June 2021 through the German national research organization Network University Medicine (NUM). All participating hospitals (6 in total) were asked to inform their employees about the study.ResultsA total of 1,495 HCWs were included in the analysis. Of these, 42.8% (n = 637) were frontline HCWs (who had contact with COVID-19 patients), 23.1% (n = 344) were second-line HCWs (who only had contact with non-COVID-19 patients) and 34.1% (n = 508) had no contact with any patients. Participating hospitals offer various counseling and support services for their staff. The percentage of respondents who were unaware of available counseling and support services ranged from 5.0 to 42.0%. Depending on the type of counseling and support services, 23.0–53.6% of the respondents indicated that counseling and support services were provided but not used, while 1.7–11.6% indicated that, despite the need for them, such services were not available. HCWs’ overall satisfaction with the provided counseling and support services and their unmet support needs differed by patient contact: Frontline HCWs reported more unmet needs for counseling and support than second-line HCWs, while second-line HCWs reported more unmet needs than HCWs without patient contact.ConclusionThe results indicate that hospitals should make more efforts to inform HCWs about available counseling and support services. Hospitals could also create networks where HCWs could share information about the type and content of services and their experiences with various counseling and support services. These steps would enable hospitals to respond more quickly and effectively to the problems facing HCWs during pandemics.
An occupational physician-led telephone hotline in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic Objectives: Apart from organizational factors, the ability and willingness of clinical staff to work during a pandemic is crucial to guaranteeing the functional capability of hospitals and therefore of the whole healthcare system. Trust in the crisis management of the employer and the provision of information to the employees can be assisted by successful crisis communication. The role of directly accessible occupational medical advice via a telephone hotline is to be evaluated here. Methods: During the first lockdown in March and April 2020 Mainz University Hospital established a telephone hotline managed by occupational physicians and made it available to all its employees. The questions and concerns raised there by the employees are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results: A total of one-third of the 122 hotline callers raised questions about testing modalities and quarantine regulations. Employees from the medical service were overrepresented compared to their share of all university hospital employees. The number of callers peaked during the first week of the hotline’s operation, at 68 % of all calls, and then declined rapidly. Conclusion: Occupational health expertise is particularly useful for counseling employees from a wide variety of work settings, especially at the beginning of a pandemic and where there is some psychological stress. In future employees should have the possibility of evaluating the consultation so that the offer can be further improved and adapted. Keywords: hospital staff – pandemic – occupational medicine support hotline
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