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Topics: Health Care, Health Service

  • An empathetic approach in healthcare is important, but sometimes challenging to achieve in practice. Photo: Johnér bildbyrå AB

    Doctors struggle with empathy in a high-pressure work environment

    Empathy is often seen as a natural and essential part of the patient encounter – but reality tends to look quite different. In a new doctoral thesis from Umeå University, doctors describe how not only time pressure, but also the structure of medical education and the culture of the workplace, can make it difficult to live up to the ideal.

  • A certain protein in listeria bacteria helps them survive in food production, putting them at risk of food poisoning. Photo: Johnér Bildbyrå AB

    Research on calcium transport can fight bacteria and provide safer food

    Researchers at Umeå University have revealed details on how bacteria use calcium to regulate vital processes, in a way that differs from human cells. This breakthrough is significant in the fight against antibiotic resistance and for increasing safety in food production.

  • Rachel Feeney, PhD Student, and Björn Schröder, Docent in infection biology, the Department of Molecular Biology at Umeå University. Photo: Anna Shevtsova

    Antibiotic usage can damage the protective mucus layer in the gut

    Researchers at Umeå University and Tartu University have found that a history of repeated antibiotic use causes defects in the normally protective mucus barrier of the gut, due to antibiotic-driven alterations in the microbiota. In a further study in a different collaboration, the researchers found a bacteria-independent mechanism through which antibiotics can damage the mucus barrier directly.