Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a type of social intelligence that involves monitoring, discriminating between and using emotions to guide thinking and actions. EI is related to interpersonal and communication skills, and is important in the assessment and training of medical undergraduates. Aim: This review aimed to determine the impact ...

The purpose of this study was to assess the coherence between the undergraduate medical program at Aarhus University and the foundation year. This cross-sectional questionnaire survey included 503 doctors graduated from Aarhus University from the winter of 2007/2008 to the summer of 2009. The response rate was 73%. Approximately 73% ...

As medical school admission committees are giving increased consideration to noncognitive measures, this study sought to determine how emotional intelligence (EI) scores relate to other traditional measures used in the admissions process. EI was measured using an ability-based test (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, or MSCEIT) in two consecutive cohorts of ...

OBJECTIVE: to establish which kind of physician communicative responses to patient cues and concerns are appreciated by lay people. METHODS: A balanced sample (259 people) was recruited in public places to participate in a full day observation of four videotaped standardized medical consultations. In a two-step procedure participants gave their ...

The ongoing evolution of reproductive medicine has revealed the complexity of emotional reactions of couples seeking to fulfil their desire for a child. The position of counselling is evaluated from three perspectives: the couple, medical staff and the individual counsellor. This leads to three proposed levels of counselling, as an ...

Cloud computing has gathered significant attention from information technology (IT) vendors in providing massively scalable applications as well as highly managed remote services. What is cloud computing and how will it impact the medical IT market? Will the next generation of picture archiving and communication systems be leveraging cloud technology?

This paper examines the grid of sentiment that structures medical travel to India. In contrast to studies that render emotion as ancillary, the paper argues that affect is fundamental to medical travel's ability to ease the linked somatic, emotional, financial, and political injuries of being ill 'back home'. The ethnographic ...

For different motives, couples in need of third party assisted reproduction sometimes prefer the help of a family member over an unrelated collaborator. Quantitative (frequency) and qualitative (experience) data about this practice are lacking or scarce. Forms of intrafamilial medically assisted reproduction (IMAR) are different with respect to (i) familial ...

Infertility in men is a common condition. At the core of the medical evaluation of the male partner in a couple who are unable to conceive is the history and physical examination. Special attention should be directed to the patient's developmental history and any use of testosterone products. The physical ...

In vitro fertilization using donated oocytes is an important medical technique that provides the only option for some infertile patients to have children. The technique remains ethically contentious, however, and, as a result of this controversy, different oversight approaches have been developed in countries around the world. This paper examines ...

In the last decade the pace of innovation in medical technology has accelerated: hence the need to better identify and understand the real forces behind the adoption and diffusion of medical technology innovations in clinical practice. Among these forces, financial incentives may be expected to play a major role. The ...

The importance of Health Information Technology and the Electronic Medical Record were discussed in the October issue of Clinical Nuclear Medicine (Henkin and Harolds, Clin Nucl Med. 2010;35). Since that article was written the Final Rule has been issued on what constitutes the meaningful use of certain information technology, such ...

Thousands of patients with incurable neurodegenerative conditions from more than 60 countries have sought fetal cell transplants in China since 2001. Drawing on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I investigate these transnational encounters occurring in the realm of experimental medicine. Critiquing popular notions of "medical tourism," I develop the alternative ...

The purpose of this article is to characterize the notion of a "good death" both historically and conceptually, grounding the philosophy of the modern hospice movement. This concept encompasses elements originating in ancient societies, such as peasant societies, where death was prepared for and shared socially, with ethical and aesthetic ...

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is implementing state-of-the-art technologies in the National Capital Region. In partnership with local and federal entities, advanced simulation and web-based computer training for a broad spectrum of military healthcare professionals will improve healthcare delivery and patient safety for service members and their families. This ...

Microrobots have the potential to revolutionize many aspects of medicine. These untethered, wirelessly controlled and powered devices will make existing therapeutic and diagnostic procedures less invasive and will enable new procedures never before possible. The aim of this review is threefold: first, to provide a comprehensive survey of the technological ...

New technologies are constantly being developed and introduced into medical practice. Their potential or actual use raises questions of efficacy and cost. All too often financial considerations of profit primarily determine whether a technology will be adopted. In an era in which the need to control costs has become clear, ...

The Australian Health Technology Assessment Review has the potential to have a major effect on the availability of new medical technology and the listing of associated medical procedures on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. Despite this, only about 15% of submissions to the Review came from "medical associations". Pharmaceutical and medical ...

Health care reform will greatly affect the medical technology industry in both positive and negative ways. Expanded coverage is a modest benefit that will increase demand for products. But the medical device excise tax authorized by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could have negative effects on research, profits, ...

Some of the measures that EFM personnel can take to further reduce their estates' carbon footprint at a time when pressure to cut energy consumption must be balanced both against the requirement to create the best possible patient environment, and new medical technology that may require substantial energy to operate, ...

The optimal choice of regulatory approach for securing patient safety is an important problem. In this review article, we show how insights from the field of regulatory studies can provide a conceptual apparatus for analysis of important problems in the regulation of medicine and healthcare. Design-based regulation operates through technical ...

Data sharing and information exchange among medical institutions is a requirement for convenient and effective data availability for both healthcare professionals and patients. In this paper, the characteristics of medical data are studied; two mainstream technologies of data storage for medical information are compared, and three strategies of medical documents ...

Electronic wireless sensors could cut medical costs by enabling physicians to remotely monitor vital signs such as blood pressure, blood glucose, and blood oxygenation while patients remain at home. According to the IDC report "Worldwide Bluetooth Semiconductor 2008-2012 Forecast," published November 2008, a forthcoming radio frequency communication ("wireless connectivity") standard, ...

A patient's trusting attitude towards technology used in their medical care may be a predictor of acceptance or rejection of the technology and, by extension, the physician. The aim of this study was to rigorously determine the validity of an instrument for measuring patients' trust in medical technology. Instrument validity ...

The boundaries once faced by individuals with amputations are quickly being overcome through biotechnology. Although there are currently no prosthetics capable of replicating anatomic function, there have been radical advancements in prosthetic technology, medical science, and rehabilitation in the past 30 years, vastly improving functional mobility and quality of life ...

Background: In field medical operations, rapid diagnosis and triage of seriously injured patients is critical. With significant bulk and cost constraints placed on all equipment, it is important that any medical devices deployed in the field demonstrate high utility, durability, and ease of use. When medical ultrasound was first used ...

Currently, there is a disparity in the availability of doctors between urban and rural areas of developing countries. Most experienced doctors and specialists, as well as advanced diagnostic technologies, are available in urban areas. People living in rural areas have less or sometimes even no access to affordable healthcare facilities. ...

The delivery of combat casualty care poses numerous challenges including austere conditions, limited supplies and medical personnel, and multiple simultaneous patients. However, the exigent circumstances of the battlefield compel the development of research and the advancement of adaptive, practical medical technologies to support and sustain military health. In Operation Enduring ...

Medical e-learning can benefit from the new technologies, and pervasive learning resources and tools worth to be introduced in the medical context. Micro-learning seems to be an interesting way for pervasive learning. But it is still difficult to propose pedagogical resources that are built by learners, from meaningful experiments. We ...

This article explores various ways health personnel enact death in connection with mechanical ventilation treatment withdrawal in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Trondheim University Hospital. The main focus is on sedated terminal patients who undergo mechanical ventilator treatment withdrawal and relatives' presence at this time. Mol's (2002) praxiographic orientation ...

In a seminal article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Søren Holm and Tuja Takala analysed two protechnology arguments in bioethics: the hopeful principle and the automatic escalator. They showed how these arguments relate to problematic arguments such as the precautionary principle and the empirical slippery slope argument, and argued ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine how medical specialists view health technology assessment (HTA) and its role in policy-making. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with 28 medical specialists practising in Quebec and Ontario (Canada) to examine their views on an HTA report relevant to their specialty (prostate-specific antigen screening, electroconvulsive therapy and prenatal screening for ...

New technologies continue to affect the practice of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. Numerous financial and regulatory barriers must be overcome to develop an idea into a useful device or intervention. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval focuses on safety, often leaving the medical community, in general, to determine the ...

OBJECTIVES: The role of biomedical engineers (BMEs) has changed widely over the years, from managing a group of technicians to the planning of large installations and the management of medical technology countrywide. As the technology has advanced, the competence of BMEs has been challenged because it is no longer possible ...

Biomaterials have evolved over the past decade in response to the need for more sophisticated technologies for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. We consider here the ways in which biomaterials are changing and the consequences of this for medical technology.

ECRI Institute medical technology experts (i.e., biomedical engineers, patient safety experts, physicians, and research scientists) compiled a list of important technology-related issues that executives and clinical leaders at ambulatory care facilities should pay close attention to this year. The list presents several high-profile technologies in the context of the convergence ...

The sociology of emotion is rapidly evolving and has implications for medical settings. Advancing medical technologies create new contexts for decision-making and emotional reaction that are framed by "feeling rules." Feeling rules guide not only behavior, but also how one believes one should feel, thereby causing one to attempt to ...

Ensuring quality medical education in all the medical colleges across India based on uniform curriculum prescribed by a regulatory body and maintaining a uniform standard are dependent on availability of an excellent infrastructure. Such infrastructure includes qualified teachers, knowledge resources, learning materials, and advanced education technology, which is a challenge ...

The pathway that emerging medical technologies take to incorporation into routine medical care in the United States is a product of the social, economic, and political milieu. Our review explores how this milieu brought the incorporation of proton beam therapy into the healthcare delivery system to its current point. We ...

Technology has great potential to reduce medication errors in hospitals. This case report describes barriers to, and facilitators of, the implementation of a pharmacy bar code scanning system to reduce medication dispensing errors at a large academic medical center. Ten pharmacy staff were interviewed about their experiences during the implementation. ...

Technology assumes a key role in current clinical practice. A number of innovative or improved products are constantly being launched on the market and offered directly to the users (i.e., clinicians) or even to the patients. However, in most cases, the regulation for admission to commerce is slower than the ...

Telemedicine provides the opportunity to bring medical expertise to the bedside, even if the medical expert is not physically near the patient. Internet technology has facilitated telemedicine allowing for voice, video and other data to be exchanged between remote locations. To date, applications of telemedicine to anesthesia (Teleanesthesia) have been ...

The emerging and potential commercial applications of nanotechnologies clearly have great potential to significantly advance and even potentially revolutionize various aspects of medical practice and medical product development. Nanotechnology is already touching upon many aspects of medicine, including drug delivery, diagnostic imaging, clinical diagnostics, nanomedicines, and the use of nanomaterials ...

Information technology improves outcomes (e.g., by reducing error), and universal implementation of electronic medical records throughout the United States is a national goal. Prior studies have shown low rates of implementation. To assess the current state of acquisition and implementation of information technology tools in Massachusetts emergency departments (EDs). This ...

Military personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan witnessed decreased numbers of soldiers killed in action and increased numbers of soldiers wounded in action. Medical personnel attribute these changes to use of improved body armor, rapid evacuation to medical treatment facilities, and use of medical technology. In recent years, medical technologist ...

In the United States, inpatient medical care increasingly encompasses the use of expensive medical technology and, at the same time, is coordinated and supervised more and more by a rapidly growing number of inpatient-dedicated physicians (hospitalists). In the production of inpatient care services, Hospitalist services can be viewed as complementary ...

In this age of information technology, physicians are confronted daily with the dilemma of how to deal with an excess of medical information. To do this efficiently and effectively, it is important to be aware of new technologies and their application. This article introduces emerging technologies, highlighting some of the ...

Medical applications have long provided an impetus for research in silicon-based microsystems. This paper explores micro-technologies that complement and extend conventional manufacturing approaches and applications. For example, lithographic microfabrication methods can be used to fabricate stents and integrated microsensors that can monitor lumen patency in cardiac and biliary applications. These ...

The medication use process is one of the most complex and risky clinical care processes in the hospital. It involves a large number of caregivers in widely diverse areas: physicians, nurses, pharmacists and respiratory therapists. Studies performed over the past several years have shown that medication errors and adverse events ...

Medical outsourcing is the process in which a healthcare provider, spanning the provider continuum from individual physician to a health system, contracts with a third party located either domestically or internationally to provide medical services. The combination of ongoing radiologist shortages and technological developments has set the stage for an ...