Reuse of both single-use and multiuse medical devices is a common practice and can result in transmission of infection when appropriate sterilization or reprocessing does not occur. Reuse of single-use devices can be problematic because there are no clear standards for reprocessing, although data regarding adverse outcomes are limited. Single-use ...

Candida albicans is normally present in nearly all humans but can cause fatal diseases in immunocompromised patients. The ALS gene family of C. albicans has been suggested to be important for the biofilm formation on medical devices. Here, we cloned all ALS genes and determined the binding properties of their ...

OBJECTIVE: Improved outcomes of cancer treatment allow patients to undergo treatment while working. However, support from oncologists and medical institutions is essential for patients to continue working. This study aimed to clarify oncologists' awareness and behavior regarding patients who work during treatment, support in medical institutions and their association. METHODS: ...

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Harmonization Center (AHC) was established in 2009 with the purpose of promoting harmonization of regulatory processes for drugs and medical devices. The AHC held three training workshops on multiregional clinical trials (MRCTs); these workshops provided forums for discussing the value and potential benefits of MRCTs. ...

ABSTRACT The use of large animals are critical for the evaluation of safety of human valves and other medical devices. Preclinical assessment includes many factors oriented at maximizing safety and performance. The final step of the device approval for patient's use goes through an exhaustive regulatory process to prevent clinical ...

The prescribing and processing of parenteral nutrition (PN) orders for pediatric patients may involve multiple steps, be time-consuming, and have opportunity for error if safety measures are not in place. The process can vary from institution to institution. The authors conducted a comparison of their system for the prescribing and ...

Latin American medical orthopedic sub specialties have evolved a lot during the past decade. Foot and ankle surgery for instance, has gained high level of proficiency and competence throughout the international scientific communities. This may be due to the availability of new technology in osteosyntheses, orthopedic devices and surgical instruments ...

Metallic materials are well known to strongly interact with electromagnetic fields. While biological effects of such field have been extensively studied, only few works dealt with the interactions of electromagnetic waves with passive metallic device implanted in biological system. Hence only several numerical and phantom simulation studies were focusing on ...

Background. Biofilms contaminate catheters, ventilators, and medical implants; they act as a source of disease for humans, animals, and plants. Aim. Critical care units of any healthcare institute follow various interventional strategies with use of medical devices for the management of critical cases. Bacteria contaminate medical devices and form biofilms. ...

In order to effectively analyze and control use-related risk of medical devices, quantitative methodologies must be applied. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a proactive technique for error detection and risk reduction. In this article, an improved FMEA based on Fuzzy Mathematics and Grey Relational Theory is developed to ...

INTRODUCTION AND GOALS: Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss is a hearing disorder of unknown cause. The spontaneous recovery rate ranges from 50 to 75% of the patients. Scientific experiments on animals support the present study in patients with sudden deafness treated with sounds. PATIENTS AND METHODS: During the period 2003-2009, ...

A medical device manufacturer pays a surgeon to demonstrate a novel medical instrument in a live broadcast to an audience of specialists in another city. The surgical patient is unaware of the broadcast and unaware of the doctor's relationship with the manufacturer. It turns out that the patient required a ...

The Interregional New Technologies Committee (INTC) is one evaluation route for new medical technologies or technologies with expanded indications within Kaiser Permanente (KP). The primary focus of the INTC is to consider all available published evidence on a particular technology, surgical technique, or implantable device for a specific clinical indication ...

Although patient safety initiatives in the clinical environment have focused primarily on medication errors to date, medical devices also contribute significantly to patient injuries and deaths. This article addresses the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) efforts to promote safe use of medical devices by nurses at the point of care. ...

General practitioners (GPs) are often faced with complicated, vague problems in situations of uncertainty that they have to solve at short notice. In such situations, gut feelings seem to play a substantial role in their diagnostic process. Qualitative research distinguished a sense of alarm and a sense of reassurance. However, ...

INTRODUCTION:: Encouraged by evidence suggesting that simulation-based educational programs can translate to improved patient care, interest and investment in medical simulation have grown considerably in the past decade. Despite such growth, simulation is still a developing field, and little is known of the perceived needs for simulation training among practicing ...

Loss of chance claims involve an allegation that a patient has lost the chance of a better medical outcome, in terms of treatment and/or prognosis, as a result of the negligence of the medical practitioner. A recent High Court of Australia judgment confirmed that monetary damages are not available for ...

Delivery of current health care services focuses on interdisciplinary teams and greater involvement of health care providers such as nurses and pharmacists. This requires a change in role perception and acceptance, usually with some resistance to changes. There are few studies investigating the perceptions of general practitioners (GPs) towards community ...

INTRODUCTION: "Suicide tourism," the practice of traveling to a foreign destination to commit suicide, has been described in the medical literature. Additionally, committing suicide by self-administering veterinary medications has been previously described. CASE DESCRIPTIONS: We report two successful and one unsuccessful suicide attempts involving border-town travelers utilizing self-administered veterinary pentobarbital ...

Case histories are based on actual medical negligence claims or medicolegal referrals; however certain facts have been omitted or changed by the author to ensure the anonymity of the parties involved. On 26 March 2008, the Council of Australian Governments signed an Intergovernmental Agreement for a National Registration and Accreditation ...

Though the positive effect of touch on compliance has been widely reported in the social psychology literature, a new evaluation has been made in a health setting. Six general practitioners were instructed to touch (or not) their patients on the forearm for 1-2 s. Patients who suffered from mild pharyngitis ...

BACKGROUND: The current residency training system in the United States (US) has inherent dependence on the international medical graduate (IMG). This article discusses the physician workforce shortage, especially related to general surgery, and examines the distribution of IMGs in general surgery ranks. STUDY DESIGN: We performed a cross-sectional study using ...

Clinical cytology is a diagnostic branch of medicine, best known by the Papa test in gynaecology. But, cytology can be applied in almost all fields of clinical medicine. Its advantages--high accuracy, simplicity, with little or no aggressiveness and low cost--are not used as widely as they could be. Medical practice, ...

AIMS: To analyse recent published information about the Health and Disability Commissioner's investigations in the context of The New Zealand Medical Council's Domains of Competence and investigate possible relationships. METHODS: Retrospective review of 100 recent Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) investigations published online (all cases reviewed regardless of the Commissioner's ...

We aimed to determine whether the frequency of General Practitioner and Cardiologist consultations impacted on improvements in risk factors in Choice of Health Options in Reducing Cardiovascular Events (CHOICE) randomised controlled trial. Retrospective subgroup analysis of single-blind randomised controlled trial. We included acute coronary syndrome survivors not accessing cardiac rehabilitation ...

Generic formulations of medications are marketed as therapeutically equivalent and less expensive than branded ones. Multiple studies and case reports have described relapses and worsening clinical outcome in patients after a switch from a brand name to a generic medication. Recent studies have shown that generics do not always lead ...

The tissue-based phenomena and the tissue interactions responsible for tooth displacement can be modulated by varying the intensity of the applied forces or by means of medicated molecules absorbed by the patient or prescribed by the orthodontist. However, harmful side-effects such as inflammatory root resorption or replacement resorption (ankylosis) can ...

Alternative medications as a term call up many different meanings, significance, and perceptions to various medical practitioners. Some are good; others are bad. A wide range of alternative medications with relevance or connection to cardiovascular (CV) disease have been considered. While many are worthless, others have definite benefit, and at ...

Visuality is a concept used to study vision as an historically and culturally specific activity. Curriculum in the medical humanities could address visuality by stressing how different kinds of practitioners and peoples learn how to see. This paper introduces the visual training promoted by the discipline of art history, analysing ...

In the context of the impending national registration of health practitioners in Australia including doctors, this column describes the types and patterns of complaints to a State Medical Board across an extended period, about graduates from one medical school. De-identified data concerning complaints about medical practitioners who had graduated from ...

There are no data on the preparedness of medical students at the time of their graduation to handle a cardiac arrest. The aim of the present study was to compare the performance in cardiopulmonary resuscitation of medical students at the time of their graduation with that of experienced general practitioners. ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the needs of Dutch general practitioners on discharge medication, both regarding content, timing and the appreciation of pharmacotherapeutic advice from clinical pharmacists. SETTING: A general teaching hospital in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. METHOD: A prospective observational study was performed. A questionnaire with regard to the content, optimal timing ...

A little known 18th century midwife, Ang?lique Marguerite Le Boursier (1715-1794) may well be the true founder of modern surgical simulation. This fiercely independent medical practitioner stood equally amongst the many enlightened minds of this period and fought with every modern method to reduce infant/maternal mortality during childbirth. Her original ...

OBJECTIVE: To integrate informal registered medical practitioners (IRMP) in Directly Observed Therapy Short Course (DOTS) implementation to improve case detection rate. METHODS: This interventional study was conducted in the settlement area of Malir district whereas New Karachi was taken as control, between February to November 2005. All registered healthcare providers ...

The medical understanding of autism has changed since it was first defined by Kanner. Nowadays medicine identifies many medical abnormalities and diseases, which may underline or aggravate the cognitive aspect, behavioural issues and general health in autists. This includes chronic inflammation of gastrointestinal tract, dysbiosis, maldigestion, malabsorption, malnutrition, food intolerance, ...

This paper aims to assess the validity of a questionnaire aimed at assessing how general practitioners (GPs) and specialists rate collaboration. Primary data were collected in The Netherlands during March to September 2006. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 259 GPs and 232 specialists. Participants were randomly selected from The ...

BACKGROUND: There is a decline in the relative numbers of general practitioners in Germany. Earlier research showed that the professional relationship between general practitioners and specialists is overshadowed by conflicts which could influence medical students not to choose a career in general practice. The aim of the study is to ...

While there is considerable research on medical workforce supply trends, there is little research examining the determinants of labour supply decisions for the medical workforce. The "Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL)" study investigates workforce participation patterns and their determinants using a longitudinal survey of Australian doctors. It ...

The Varsity Medical Debate, between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, brings together practitioners and the public, professors, pupils and members of the polis, to facilitate discussion about ethics and policy within healthcare. The motion on privatizing the National Health Service (NHS) was specifically chosen to reflect the growing sentiment in the ...

Many interventions shown to be effective through clinical trials are not readily implemented in clinical practice. Unfortunately, little is known regarding how clinicians construct their perceptions of the effectiveness of medical interventions. This study aims to explore general practitioners' perceptions of the nature of 'effectiveness'. The design was qualitative in ...

The aim of this study was to test the user performance, satisfaction and acceptability of the Helping Hand™ (B&O Medicom) electronic medication adherence monitor. Using a mixed-method design, we studied 11 kidney transplant patients and 10 healthy volunteers during three weeks. Although testing showed positive usability aspects, several areas requiring ...

In a prospective descriptive laboratory study, 25 Helping Hand(™) (HH) (10 without and 15 with reminder system) and 50 Medication Event Monitoring Systems (MEMS) (25 with 18-month and 25 with 2-year battery life) were manipulated twice daily following a predefined protocol during 3 consecutive weeks. Accuracy was determined using the ...

Ubiquitous home healthcare systems have been playing an increasingly significant role in the treatment and management of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, but progress has been hampered by the lack of standardization in the exchange of medical health care information. In an effort to establish standardization, this paper ...

This article examines a criminal and professional approach to the regulation of preimplantation diagnosis (PGD) in the two Australian States of Victoria and New South Wales. Under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 (Vic), Victorian medical practitioners face criminal sanctions if they ignore legal requirements. The criminal sanctions do not ...

This article presents the results of a survey conducted among New South Wales medical practitioners to assess the extent to which the enactment of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) has reduced the practice of defensive medicine. The new legislation was intended in part to reduce the practice of defensive ...

Good medicine labelling practice is vital to ensure safe use of medicines. Non-compliance to labelling standards is a potential source of medication errors. This study was intended to evaluate and compare compliance towards labelling standard for dispensed medications between community pharmacists and general practitioners in Penang, Malaysia. A total of ...

Simulation! The deans talk about its use in medical education regularly. But how can it be used to teach the basic sciences to first- and second-year medical students? This article will help answer that question by providing information about various types of simulation activities being used in medical education and ...

The aim of this article is to determine the extent of and changes in horizontal inequity in general practitioner and medical specialist utilization in Ireland from 1997 to 2001. Horizontal equity refers to people in equal need of treatment receiving similar treatment regardless of income. After accounting for the differences ...

This article offers a case study of the politics of reproduction present between development programs, medical practitioners, and population policies in Mexico. It particularly explores how these policies have shaped indigenous women's family planning choices. It analyzes the unintended consequences that emerge from the interaction between indigenous women, medicine, and ...

Many medical specialties have reviewed the drawbacks of statistical methods in medical diagnosis in specialized areas in their journals. To my knowledge this has not been done in general practice. Given the main role of a general practitioner as a biostatistician, I thought it would be of interest to enumerate ...