[Aim of the study: The authors studied the attitudes, regarding the future, of female students who had chosen a paramedical vocation. In the course of their work they assessed the students’ vision of the future, and obtained a detailed knowledge of their family and career plans, and the correlations between them. Methodology and sample: The quantitative sociological survey, based on a self-completion questionnaire, was conducted among 2nd, 3rd and 4th year student nurses, student midwifes and student health visitors at the Semmelweis University Faculty of Health Sciences. The results were analysed with the SPSS 19.0 program, using a descriptive statistical method. The proportion of useful responses to the questionnaire was 94.1% (N=257). Results: The students clearly prefer motherhood, but their vision of the future is uncertain. Achieving new and higher professional targets was considered important by 29.2% of the sample, and going to practice their studied profession by 54.5%. With regard to career plans, the authors found a statistically provable difference between the specialisations (p<0.001). Of the nursing students who responded, 82.6% wanted to attain middle-management status by the age of 40, while only 8.7% would also be happy to work as general staff. Conclusions: The female students at Semmelweis University are preparing both to have children and to practice their paramedical vocation. The responses given regarding their vision of the future could show that the reconciliation of these two future roles is already causing uncertainty. A higher proportion of the respondents would like to achieve middle-management status, which represents greater prestige for them. A positive shift in their vision of the future could help prevent career abandonment and emigration. ]

Microdiscectomy (MD) is a stan­dard technique for the surgical treatment of lumbar disc herniation (LDH). Uniportal percutaneous full-endoscopic in­terlaminar lumbar discectomy (PELD) is another surgical op­tion that has become popular owing to reports of shorter hos­pitalization and earlier functional recovery. There are very few articles analyzing the total costs of these two techniques. The purpose of this study was to compare total hospital costs among microdiscectomy (MD) and uniportal percutaneous full-endoscopic interlaminar lumbar discectomy (PELD). Forty patients aged between 22-70 years who underwent PELD or MD with different anesthesia techniques were divided into four groups: (i) PELD-local anesthesia (PELD-Local) (n=10), (ii) PELD-general anesthesia (PELD-General) (n=10), (iii) MD-spinal anesthesia (MD-Spinal) (n=10), (iv) MD-general anesthesia (MD-General) (n=10). Health care costs were defined as the sum of direct costs. Data were then analyzed based on anesthetic modality to produce a direct cost evaluation. Direct costs were compared statistically between MD and PELD groups. The sum of total costs was $1,249.50 in the PELD-Local group, $1,741.50 in the PELD-General group, $2,015.60 in the MD-Spinal group, and $2,348.70 in the MD-General group. The sum of total costs was higher in the MD-Spinal and MD-General groups than in the PELD-Local and PELD-General groups. The costs of surgical operation, surgical equipment, anesthesia (anesthetist’s costs), hospital stay, anesthetic drugs and materials, laboratory wor­kup, nur­sing care, and postoperative me­dication diffe­red significantly among the two main groups (PELD-MD) (p<0.01). This study demonstrated that PELD is less costly than MD.

[The well-known gap bet­ween stroke mortality of Eastern and Western Euro­pean countries may reflect the effect of socioeconomic diffe­rences. Such a gap may be present between neighborhoods of different wealth within one city. We set forth to compare age distribution, incidence, case fatality, mortality, and risk factor profile of stroke patients of the poorest (District 8) and wealthiest (District 12) districts of Budapest. We synthesize the results of our former comparative epidemiological investigations focusing on the association of socioeconomic background and features of stroke in two districts of the capital city of Hungary. The “Budapest District 8–12 project” pointed out the younger age of stroke patients of the poorer district, and established that the prevalence of smoking, alcohol-consumption, and untreated hypertension is also higher in District 8. The “Six Years in Two Districts” project involving 4779 patients with a 10-year follow-up revealed higher incidence, case fatality and mortality of stroke in the less wealthy district. The younger patients of the poorer region show higher risk-factor prevalence, die younger and their fatality grows faster during long-term follow-up. The higher prevalence of risk factors and the higher fatality of the younger age groups in the socioeconomically deprived district reflect the higher vulnerability of the population in District 8. The missing link between poverty and stroke outcome seems to be lifestyle risk-factors and lack of adherence to primary preventive efforts. Public health campaigns on stroke prevention should focus on the young generation of socioeconomi­cally deprived neighborhoods. ]