BACKGROUND

This study explores the professional functions and experiences of male midwives in the Province of Aurora, highlighting their roles, challenges, and contributions to maternal and child healthcare in a traditionally female-dominated profession.

This study aims to investigate the professional functions and lived experiences of male midwives in the Province of Aurora.

This research employed a qualitative ethnographic design using semi-structured interviews to collect data. Participants were six male midwives practicing in Aurora. Data collection was conducted via mobile phone interviews from August to September 2024. A purposive sampling technique was utilized to select participants. The study adhered to ethical guidelines, receiving approval from the University of Northern Philippines Ethics Review Committee Code: 2024-251, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Qualitative inductive content analysis as described by Padgett was utilized to allow for data-driven analysis without pre-defined themes, making it suitable for exploring the diverse experiences of male midwives.

Analysis revealed six key themes: Diverse professional functions, gender bias and stereotyping, patient reluctance and shyness, cultural influences, experiences of discrimination and prejudice, and daily challenges and rewards in practice. The findings underscore the commitment of male midwives to providing quality care despite societal and professional barriers. Under the Functions theme, male midwives described their roles as not only caregivers but also as advocates for gender inclusivity in midwifery. In terms of experiences, some reported feelings of isolation and the need to prove their competence in a field dominated by women. However, they also shared empowering stories of camaraderie with female colleagues and the satisfaction derived from breaking down gender barriers.

Male midwives play a vital role in maternal and newborn healthcare, navigating challenges such as gender bias and patient hesitancy. Strengthening administrative support, promoting inclusivity, and updating policies can enhance their professional integration. Advocacy efforts from professional organizations are necessary to address workplace challenges and recognize their contributions to healthcare.

BACKGROUND

This study explores the professional functions and experiences of male midwives in the Province of Aurora, highlighting their roles, challenges, and contributions to maternal and child healthcare in a traditionally female-dominated profession.

This study aims to investigate the professional functions and lived experiences of male midwives in the Province of Aurora.

This research employed a qualitative ethnographic design using semi-structured interviews to collect data. Participants were six male midwives practicing in Aurora. Data collection was conducted via mobile phone interviews from August to September 2024. A purposive sampling technique was utilized to select participants. The study adhered to ethical guidelines, receiving approval from the University of Northern Philippines Ethics Review Committee Code: 2024-251, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Qualitative inductive content analysis as described by Padgett was utilized to allow for data-driven analysis without pre-defined themes, making it suitable for exploring the diverse experiences of male midwives.

Analysis revealed six key themes: Diverse professional functions, gender bias and stereotyping, patient reluctance and shyness, cultural influences, experiences of discrimination and prejudice, and daily challenges and rewards in practice. The findings underscore the commitment of male midwives to providing quality care despite societal and professional barriers. Under the Functions theme, male midwives described their roles as not only caregivers but also as advocates for gender inclusivity in midwifery. In terms of experiences, some reported feelings of isolation and the need to prove their competence in a field dominated by women. However, they also shared empowering stories of camaraderie with female colleagues and the satisfaction derived from breaking down gender barriers.

Male midwives play a vital role in maternal and newborn healthcare, navigating challenges such as gender bias and patient hesitancy. Strengthening administrative support, promoting inclusivity, and updating policies can enhance their professional integration. Advocacy efforts from professional organizations are necessary to address workplace challenges and recognize their contributions to healthcare.

Unrecognized gender issues in TB prevention and management in the community and the resulting lack of mechanisms to address these poses as barrier in the success of TB control. Results from two projects on gender responsiveness in TB prevention and management in the community conducted in 2020-2023 contributed to the development of a checklist that can be used as guide to make TB control measures gender-responsive. The checklist used the basic elements of a public health program as framework. This was enhanced by measures to address gender issues which surfaced from KAPcommunity surveys on TB and Gender, in-depth interviews of TB program implementers, and FGDs with women and men who had lived with TB, including their families.
Public Health ; Sexism

Glass ceiling is the unseen barrier that prohibits women and minorities in achieving a higher potential in the workplace. This barrier influences the well-being and prosperity of women and minorities resulting to career stagnation and inability to earn a higher income. Despite the abundance of literature on the issue, there is a dearth of comprehensive information that examines the organizational, cultural, and individual factors that contribute to the glass ceiling phenomenon in the healthcare industry. The main goal of this study is to do a full scoping review to find and map all the existing healthcare settings that contribute to the glass ceiling effect. A total of 28,184 hits resulted in the search of the published and grey literature. Nine articles passed the full-text review and were further reviewed. Data were synthesized and interpreted to determine the experiences of nurses about the glass ceiling phenomenon. Findings: Gender discrimination, bias, and stereotyping prevent nurses from learning executive summary skills, maintain the gender wage gap, and lead to unequal treatment of women and men in the health workforce; structural and systemic barriers within healthcare organizations can restrict their access to these higher-level positions; underrepresentation of women in leadership roles leads to lack of mentors; and lack of work-life balance due to limited flexible work arrangements.
Sexism ; Gender Equity ; Nurses

The spate of unidentified human remains as a result of kidnapping, killings, and so forth was the reason for this study. The purpose of this study was to measure the crown and cusps of each of the permanent maxillary first two molars to determine discriminant score and functions among Urhobo people of Nigeria. All Undergraduates of the Delta State University, Abraka, who are pure breeds Urhobo, form the study population. Three hundred and six subjects (171 males and 135 females), with mean age 22.88±3.34 years, participated in the study, which is based on the simple random sampling technique. All four crown widths and the four cusps of the maxillary first two molars were measured in millimeter, from a prepared study models of dental stone, and crown area, crown and cusps indices were calculated. The level of sexual dimorphism was also calculated for each parameter. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data while inferential statistics were used to ascertain significant sexual differences and to determine discriminant scores and functions. Statistical significance was fixed at P≤0.05. Crown and cusp dimensions of the first two permanent maxillary molars exhibited statistically significant sexual dimorphism. The highest percentage of sexual dimorphism was crown area of maxillary second molar (9.08%), followed by first molar (7.85%). Next, were metacone, paracone, disto-buccomesio-lingual, and mesio-buccodisto-lingual widths. The overall sex discriminatory precisions of the various parameters in the maxillary first two molars are good. The findings of this study are of relevance in forensic anthropology.
Adult ; Crime ; Crowns ; Forensic Anthropology ; Homicide ; Humans ; Male ; Molar ; Nigeria ; Sexism ; Young Adult

Inappropriate authorship and other fraudulent publication strategies are pervasive. Here, I deal with contribution disclosures, authorship disputes versus plagiarism among collaborators, kin co-authorship, gender bias, authorship trade, and fake peer review (FPR). In contrast to underserved authorship and other ubiquitous malpractices, authorship trade and FPR appear to concentrate in some Asian countries that exhibit a mixed academic pattern of rapid growth and poor ethics. It seems that strong pressures to publish coupled with the incessantly growing number of publications entail a lower quality of published science in part attributable to a poor, compromised or even absent (in predatory journals) peer review. In this regard, the commitment of Publons to strengthen this fundamental process and ultimately ensure the quality and integrity of the published articles is laudable. Because the many recommendations for adherence to authorship guidelines and rules of honest and transparent research reporting have been rather ineffective, strong deterrents should be established to end manipulated peer review, undeserved authorship, and related fakeries.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Authorship* ; Dissent and Disputes ; Ethics ; Humans ; Peer Review* ; Plagiarism ; Publications ; Research Report ; Sexism

The biological profile of a person is crucial in the forensic anthropology casework; and sexual dimorphism of the index and ring fingers makes them a vital tool for sex prediction. This study was undertaken to predict the sex of an individual from the index and ring finger lengths, and index-ring finger length ratio in the Ukwuani of Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional study involving all the indigenous Ukwuani secondary school students and members of staff within Ukwuani local government area that utilized 200 male and 200 female adolescents and 68 male and 83 female adults based on the systematic random sampling technique. The index and ring finger lengths were measured and the index:ring finger ratio calculated. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistics version 23.0. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Statistics used were mean, standard deviation, t test, Pearson's correlation, and discriminant function analysis. Males showed statistically longer absolute finger lengths than females. The left index:ring finger ratio in adolescents was significantly greater in females than males, but the others were not. There were significant paired sample correlations in both age groups. There was no significant correlation between age and finger lengths, and ratios. The overall accuracy of the discriminant functions was higher and better for the finger lengths than for the finger ratios that were moderate. This study showed that the index and ring finger lengths can be used as tools to predict the sex of an individual using the discriminant function analysis in a medico-legal situation.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Discriminant Analysis ; Female ; Fingers ; Forensic Anthropology ; Humans ; Local Government ; Male ; Nigeria ; Sexism

PURPOSE: This study aimed to explore public opinion on workplace bullying in the nursing field, by analyzing the keywords and topics of online news comments.METHODS: This was a text-mining study that collected, processed, and analyzed text data. A total of 89,951 comments on 650 online news articles, reported between January 1, 2013 and July 31, 2018, were collected via web crawling. The collected unstructured text data were preprocessed and keyword analysis and topic modeling were performed using R programming.RESULTS: The 10 most important keywords were “work” (37121.7), “hospital” (25286.0), “patients” (24600.8), “woman” (24015.6), “physician” (20840.6), “trouble” (18539.4), “time” (17896.3), “money” (16379.9), “new nurses” (14056.8), and “salary” (13084.1). The 22,572 preprocessed key words were categorized into four topics: “poor working environment”, “culture among women”, “unfair oppression”, and “society-level solutions”.CONCLUSION: Public interest in workplace bullying among nurses has continued to increase. The public agreed that negative work environment and nursing shortage could cause workplace bullying. They also considered nurse bullying as a problem that should be resolved at a societal level. It is necessary to conduct further research through gender discrimination perspectives on nurse workplace bullying and the social value of nursing work.
Bullying ; Data Mining ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Nursing ; Public Opinion ; Sexism

OBJECTIVES: Despite the modern advances in thyroid surgery, recurrent laryngeal nerve (rln) paralysis is still a critical problem. In order to decrease the rate of this complication, rln anatomy has been studied intensively. In our study, we aimed to recognize the relationship of rln and landmarks of the first tracheal ring. METHODS: Eighty-six female and 18 male patients who were undergone total thyroidectomy were included in this study. Trachea vertical height (tvh), right recurrent laryngeal nerve height (rrh), left recurrent laryngeal nerve height (lrh), right recurrent laryngeal nerve to trachea anterior face median raphe distance (rrd), left recurrent laryngeal nerve to trachea anterior face median raphe distance (lrd), right recurrent laryngeal nerve respect to trachea ratio (rrtr), and left recurrent laryngeal nerve respect to trachea ratio (lrtr) parameters of all patients were measured and compared in males and females using independent t-test and measurements on both right and left sides were compared statistically without sex discrimination. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between groups in tvh, rrh, rrd, lrd, rrtr, and lrtr parameters. Lrh parameter was significantly higher in males than in females (P<0.04). Comparison of right and left sides revealed that lrh was significantly higher than rrh (P<0.001), lrd was significantly higher than rrd (P<0.001), and rrtr was significantly higher than lrtr (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: In this study, we have shown that in all cases the rln was located around the lower half of trachea vertical length and at this level left rln was located significantly deeper than the right side.
Female* ; Humans ; Intraoperative Complications ; Male* ; Paralysis ; Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve* ; Sexism ; Thyroid Gland ; Thyroidectomy ; Trachea

As a bisphosphonate, minodronate (MIN) is one of the strongest inhibitors of bone resorption. However, there have been no reports directly comparing the antiresorptive effects of monthly MIN with those of monthly risedronate (RIS). We enrolled 30 cases of osteoporosis (OP; 16 in the MIN group [mean age: 68.2 years] and 14 in the RIS group [mean age: 68.1 years]) to investigate the early effects of treatment by monthly MIN or RIS over a 4-month period using bone turnover marker values. Only female patients were enrolled to avoid gender bias. Urinary cross-linked N-telopeptide of type I collagen (NTX) before treatment and at 1, 2, and 4 months of therapy, as well as serum bone alkaline phosphatase and alkaline phosphatase before treatment and at 4 months afterwards, were evaluated. All bone turnover marker values were significantly decreased at 4 months in both groups. The changes in urinary NTX at the study end point for RIS and MIN were -30.1% and -63.1%, respectively. From 2 months of treatment, the antiresorptive effects on urinary NTX by MIN were significantly higher than those by RIS, indicating that MIN more immediately and strongly inhibited bone absorption. Thus, monthly MIN seems to suppress bone resorption faster and more strongly than RIS in OP treatment.
Absorption ; Alkaline Phosphatase ; Bone Remodeling ; Bone Resorption* ; Collagen Type I ; Female ; Humans ; Osteoporosis ; Risedronate Sodium* ; Sexism