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This study investigated whether there are gender differences in attention to bodily expressions of pain and core emotions. Three experiments are reported using the attentional dot probe task. Images of men and women displaying bodily expressions, including pain, were presented. The task was used to determine whether participants’ attention was drawn towards or away from target expressions. Inconsistent evidence was found for an attentional bias towards body expressions, including pain. While these biases were affected by gender, patterns varied across the Experiments. Experiment 1, which had a presentation duration of 500 ms, found a relative bias towards the location of male body expressions compared to female expressions. Experiments 2 and 3 varied stimulus exposure times by including both shorter and longer duration conditions (e.g., 100 vs. 500 vs. 1250 ms). In these experiments, a bias towards pain was confirmed. Gender differences were also found, especially in the longer presentation conditions. Expressive body postures captured the attention of women for longer compared to men. These results are discussed in light of their implications for why there are gender differences in attention to pain, and what impact this has on pain behaviour.\ud \ud Perspective:- We show that men and women might differ in how they direct their attention towards bodily expressions, including pain. These results have relevance to understanding how carers might attend to the pain of others, as well as highlighting the wider role that social-contextual factors have in pain.

Aim Gallstone-related disease accounts for a third of the admissions to the Surgical Department. In June 2019, an audit was undertaken at Great Western Hospital assessing the number of patients who underwent cholecystectomy, following initial diagnosis, in accordance to current guidelines. The results demonstrated a very low number of patients had cholecystectomy, within the targeted timeframe, which led to the implementation of a dedicated operative “hot gallbladder” list weekly. In June 2020, we re-audit the service to evaluate the impact of the change implemented. Methods A retrospective observational analysis of patients admitted to the Hospital in June 2020 with gallstone-related disease. Data was collected using the Surgical on-call lists, these were analysed and patients selected according to the reason for admission. Only gallstone related issues were considered in this analysis. Finally, via Medway, the time from admission to surgery was assessed. Results Despite the disruption in service provision due to COVID-19, the implementation of the “hot gallbladder” list led to a 10.7% increase in timely cholecystectomies, bringing the overall compliance to 14%. There was also a significant reduction in biliary related re-admissions, from 58% to 37%. Despite 47.3% of patients were still awaiting surgery, the waiting list was reduced by 5.2% in only 1 year. Conclusions This study demonstrated that the implementation of the “hot gallbladder” list has improved the compliance with the current guidelines. The change has brought us in line with the national average of 15%, as estimated by RCSEng, therefore demonstrating the efficacy of the weekly list.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US Preventive Services Task Force recommend against routinely screening asymptomatic pregnant women for bacterial vaginosis (BV). Although asymptomatic BV has been associated with preterm birth, there is insufficient evidence demonstrating that treatment of asymptomatic BV improves outcomes. Conversely, women who have symptomatic BV should be treated to relieve their symptoms. This brief report provides an overview of BV, reviews the evidence regarding screening and treating BV in pregnant women, and summarizes treatment recommendations for pregnant women who have symptomatic BV.

How information is exchanged between the cognitive mechanisms responsible for gaze perception and social attention is unclear. These systems could be independent; the "gaze cueing" effect could emerge from the activation of a general-purpose attentional mechanism that is ignorant of the social nature of the gaze cue. Alternatively, orienting to social gaze direction might be directly determined by the operation of cognitive mechanisms specifically dedicated to gaze perception. This second notion is the dominant assumption in the literature, but there is little direct support for this account. Here, we systematically manipulated observers' perception of gaze direction by implementing a gaze adaptation paradigm. Gaze cueing was reduced only in conditions where perception of specific averted gaze stimuli was impaired (Experiment 1). Adaptation to a pointing stimulus failed to impact gaze cueing (Experiment 2). Overall, these data suggest a direct link between the specific operation of gaze perception mechanisms and the consequential orienting of attention.