We describe a low cost, easy to construct monitoring and teaching aid for the oesophageal and precordial stethoscopes. It is constructed from two readily available 'state of the art' integrated circuits. The aid allows more than one observer simultaneously to hear heart and breath sounds, without being acoustically isolated from ...

The extent of the liability in obstetric litigation is discussed. Arguments between experts reveal the lack of agreed standards in cardiotocography. This paper discusses the problems which need to be addressed when defining what constitutes an abnormal cardiotocogram (CTG), how long it needs to abnormal before it is significant, the ...

A migratory intravascular bullet fragment located within the hypogastric vein was removed successfully with the aid of interventional radiologic techniques. The authors describe the use of the technique of balloon trapping as part of this procedure. A balloon should be inflated between the foreign body and the heart before retrieval ...

A 9-year-old atactic breeding stallion was trained to ejaculate, with only manual stimulation, while standing on the ground. Ejaculates obtained yielded fertile semen with morphologic and motility characteristics within the range for normal stallions. This method extended the breeding life of a stallion unable to mount a live or dummy ...

Cardiac disease in companion animals constitutes a significant part of veterinary medicine. Because of the nature of the problems encountered, emotional problems in the owners can be expected to arise. The major difficulty in dealing with cardiac problems in small animals arises from the uncertainty of prognosis and the frequency ...

Effective communication is the fundamental principle for managing organizations. Building effective communication should begin with improvements at the lowest level, one-to-one. Conflict in an organization is an indication of the most basic communication failure. Failure to talk with someone. Failure to notify someone of something before it becomes public. Failure ...

L-rod procedures with sublaminar wiring have become widespread in orthopaedic practice, and serious mechanical problems involving fatigue failure, creep, and fixation have been reported. To address these problems, numerical [corrected] analysis was developed to provide estimates for the maximum bending stresses, approximately equal to maximum tensile stresses, in L-rods subject ...

Artificial insemination with donor (AID) forces the gynaecologist to face the problem of filiation with his patients. Here, the authors point out the pathogenic effect, both on the parents and the child, which may result from rigidly kept secret about 'AID filiation', and they discuss some conditions which could help ...

Selenium deficiency has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a dilated congestive cardiomyopathy in areas of China (Keshan disease) and in several patients on long-term total parenteral nutrition. Recently a clinically and pathologically similar cardiomyopathy has been described in AIDS. Since blood selenium levels are low in AIDS, we assayed ...

The process of cryopreservation is described. Three types of tissue are then considered: allograft heart valves, allograft veins and the musculoskeletal soft tissues of the knee. The problems with each of these tissue types are examined.

In order to determine if cardiac tissue from AIDS patients or patients with seropositivity to HIV-1 might be infected by HIV-1, portions of myocardium obtained postmortem were evaluated for HIV-1 DNA sequences. Cellular DNA was extracted and digested with EcoR1 and Southern blots were performed. One of three AIDS hearts ...

Concern is growing about the liability exposure faced by directors and officers of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. To determine the seriousness of the liability problem and the steps necessary to correct it, a survey of leaders in corporate and not-for-profit organizations was conducted. Three hundred and fifty hospital CEOs ...

A small proportion of smokers who stop smoking with the aid of nicotine chewing gum continue to use the gum for more than a year. This study shows that when these people abstain from nicotine gum use they experience withdrawal symptoms similar to those found during cigarette withdrawal, including increased ...

Late failure of a stapled small-bowel exclusion without transection of the bowel resulted in recurrence of an enterovaginal fistula. This necessitated reoperation and division of the small bowel, following which the patient has remained well. A review of the literature indicates that this problem might occur in similar procedures and ...

Findings in 76 subjects without cardiac failure were analyzed to detect relationships between observed changes in transthoracic electrical impedance (TEI) and total body extracellular fluid volume (ECFV) during various manoeuvres and between absolute TEI and ECFV values. TEI was normalized to electrode distance (Z0/delta el) and ECFV to lean body ...

The number one health problem and killer of adults in the United States is the heart attack. Since the development of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) 30 years ago, hospitals have addressed this problem by setting up coronary care units. As a result, approximately 100,000 lives are saved each year, yet an ...

The value of investigating tubal patency by hysterosalpingography, before artificial insemination with donor semen (AID), was studied retrospectively in 167 patients. The results suggest that unless there is a history of pelvic inflammatory disease preliminary hysterosalpinography is unnecessary. Conception rates were similar in women who had a normal hysterosalpingogram (44%), ...

The viability of isolated rat hearts cooled to - 22 degrees C with the aid of a cryoprotective agent, ethylene glycol, has been assessed by a novel technique of comparing the Fourier analysed spectrum of the electrocardiogram before and after cooling. The frequency spectrum of the electrocardiogram of a good ...

Two surgical techniques have been developed in our laboratory to deal with identifiable problems in long-term artificial heart experiments. A right throacotomy is used to deal with problems such as extensive bleeding, which occur in the immediate postoperative stage of the experiment, while a left thoracotomy is used in cases ...

There are three main reasons why there are problems concerning the nomenclature of the univentricular heart. The first is that different authorities have used the same term to describe different varieties of the univentricular heart. The second is that many of the terms used in categorisation of these anomalies are ...

The literature pertaining to the field of mechanical support of the circulation has been selective reviewed. The principal restraints to its further progress have been highlighted, and the efforts of the writer and his coworkers in certain of these sensitive areas has been commented on. The future of the materials ...

Surgical attempts to open obstructed heart valves in the 1940s led to the eventual development of valvular prostheses, accompanied by the parallel development of methods of sustaining extracorporeal circulation; biocompatible materials; and engineering designs. Early problems encountered included the incidence of thrombotic phenomena, audibility of valvular noise, impaired flow dynamics, ...

A system for the identification of heart valve prostheses has been developed. A series of observations is made on the structure of a prosthesis. Following each the most appropriate choice of two or three alternative findings is made. One is then directed to the next observation until a genus of ...

The postnatal period is clearly important to all of those involved, yet until recently, little was known about the problems that may arise and what help is available and effective. Although it is traditionally regarded as a time to rest and regain health, this is often not the reality. Both ...

Heart sound screening was performed on elementary school children in three San Mateo County communities, using the Phonocardioscan, a portable analog-digital computer. Although these communities differed significantly in socio-economic backgrounds, the incidence of previously known and unknown heart disease was not dissimilar. However, there was an unusual difference in community ...

Rats were trained to criterion in successive reversals of a classically conditioned heart-rate discrimination. Criterion was attained more rapidly in the later reversals in the series than in the early reversals and the inter-problem learning curve was of the same general form as that found with successive instrumental discrimination reversal ...