Physicians and other medical practitioners make untold numbers of judgments about patient care on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These judgments fall along a number of spectrums, from the mundane to the tragic, from the obvious to the challenging. Under the rubric of evidence-based medicine, these judgments will be ...

In a judgment dated 11 April 20 11, the Ontario Superior Court declared that the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR), and Sections 4 and 7 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), that prohibit the possession and production of cannabis, are unconstitutional because, in practice, they prevent effective access ...

To asses the knowledge, opinion and attitude of medical graduates regarding selected reproductive tract infections, diagnosis of sexual dysfunction, identification of sexual abuse and other sexual health issues in Fatima Baqai Hospital Gadap Town. A cross sectional study conducted from January 2009 to July 2009 in Fatima Baqai Hospital Karachi. ...

This study explores how preclinical medical students experience particular elements of their training, specifically their pursuit for medical knowledge and how this may impact their attributes as well as their relations with those outside of the realm of medicine. Ten first-year and 10 second-year students of a US medical school ...

WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THE SUBJECT Many different criteria have been developed to detect potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) with wide variations in prevalence estimations and inconsistent associations with health outcomes. Without head-to-head comparisons, it is difficult to know whether some PIM criteria systematically detect more or fewer PIMs than ...

In Switzerland, every physician has the right to report a patient that is potentially unfit to drive to the licensing authority without violating medical confidentiality. Verified information regarding physicians' attitudes concerning this discretionary reporting and the frequency of such reports are not available. In order to answer these questions, 635 ...

Aims. This paper (i) reviews the language used to describe and manage those patient practices that fall outside standard medical models of opioid treatment (for pain and opioid dependence), and (ii) proposes a consistent terminology that can be applied across multiple healthcare settings. Method. Peer-reviewed and grey literature documenting empirical ...

Identifying contact allergens in ophthalmic medications can be a challenging and daunting experience. We summarize data on topical ophthalmic medications with the potential to cause periorbital contact dermatitis and allergic conjunctivitis, highlighting current dilemmas and controversies in this area. The following groups of allergens are reviewed: preservatives, antiglaucoma medications (prostaglandin ...

Harmful alcohol use is a risk factor in more than 60 diseases and injuries resulting in approximately 2.5 million deaths per year worldwide. In the United States (US) and Europe, there are only a few medications approved for alcohol dependence (AD) however, these medications have only been moderately effective and ...

With the escalating use of pharmaceuticals in health care, there has been increasing anxiety over the potential health risks associated with pharmaceutical waste accumulating in the environment. This research provided nurses in a hospice care facility in Concord, California, with education and training to offer patients a medication disposal service ...

Acquired methemoglobinemia is a common, potentially fatal syndrome that can occur as a result of exposure to numerous xenobiotics. A case report of a 14-month-old female who developed methemoglobinemia following a dapsone ingestion. The child was treated with numerous boluses of methylene blue and ultimately required a continuous infusion of ...

BACKGROUND: Over-the-counter (OTC) medications, benzodiazepines, and barbiturates are not covered under many Medicare drug benefit plans; hence, their use by homebound older adults is largely unreported. Furthermore, the tiered design of Medicare drug formularies may in fact promote the use of older but potentially inappropriate medications. Little is known about ...

WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT • Adverse drug reactions and polypharmacy are common, particularly later in life. Suboptimal use of medicines may be associated with adverse health outcomes. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS • Markers of potentially suboptimal medication use (both medication over-use and under-use) were observed frequently among a cohort ...

Polypills, which include multiple medications for reducing cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in a single pill, have been proposed for population-wide use. The number of US adults eligible for polypills and potential benefits are unknown. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004 and 2007-2008 were analyzed to estimate treatment rates ...

More US-based patients than ever are travelling abroad for medical or dental services. Beyond financial incentives, what cultural factors have supported this trend? Because of their interest in selling medical travel, medical travel agencies (MTAs) have vested interests in this question. To find out how they are answering it, an ...

Reactive airways dysfunction syndrome (RADS) is defined as an asthma-like illness which develops after a single high-level exposure to a pulmonary irritant. Two different cases are reviewed in which the exposure circumstances were clearly not sufficient to result in chronic adverse health effects yet resulted in persistent respiratory symptoms and ...

Dopaminergic nigro-striatal depletion interferes with the detection of novel stimuli. This suggests that Parkinsońs disease (PD) may generate from the initial stages a failure in involuntary attention (IA), which can be studied through the distraction potential, composed by the Mismatch Negativity (MMN), the P3a and the Reorientation Negativity (RON). This ...

Deceased potential organ donors are often under the jurisdiction of medical examiners/ coroners. In these deaths, the medical examiner/coroner has the statutory responsibility of determining cause and manner of death but is also responsible for presenting findings from the complete autopsy in court. The ability to analyze findings such as ...

Intravenous infusion may present the greatest preventable medication administration error risk to hospitalized patients. Smart pumps can provide clinical decision support at the bedside for nurses who are administering intravenously administered medications with the potential to significantly reduce medication errors and subsequent patient harm. However, implementations of smart pumps have ...

The purpose of this study was to determine the nonmedical use of prescription attention deficit disorder (ADD) stimulant medication among dental and dental hygiene students. A questionnaire was used to examine demographic information, student experiences, and perceptions of prescription stimulant medication and to determine if students used a prescription stimulant ...

The diversion, misuse, and non-medically supervised use of buprenorphine and buprenorphine/naloxone by opioid users are reviewed. Buprenorphine and buprenorphine/naloxone are used globally as opioid analgesics and in the treatment of opioid dependency. Diversion of buprenorphine and buprenorphine/naloxone represents a complex medical and social issue, and has been widely documented in ...

Recent clinical trials comparing the effectiveness of antipsychotics have found no advantage for second-generation antipsychotics over older first-generation agents. However, the former are much more commonly used despite their significantly higher cost and potential for contributing to the metabolic syndrome. To date, educational interventions have been unsuccessful in influencing this ...

Cognitive therapy is a system of psychotherapy with a powerful theoretical infrastructure, which has received extensive empirical support, and a large body of research attesting to its efficacy for a wide range of psychiatric and medical problems. This article provides a brief overview of the conceptual and practical components of ...

Methylene blue (MB), the first synthetic drug, has a 120-year-long history of diverse applications, both in medical treatments and as a staining reagent. In recent years there was a surge of interest in MB as an antimalarial agent and as a potential treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease ...

Introduction: Ascites is a common complication of advanced cirrhosis that has a significant negative impact on survival. This review updates the reader on the medical management of ascites. Areas covered: This review explores the pathophysiology of ascites formation in cirrhosis; the current mainstays of medical management (treating the underlying cause ...

Hospital doctors frequently invoke the idea of medical futility in making decisions regarding end-of-life care. This concept of futility will be reviewed and the differing definitions and how it relates to other important principles in biomedical ethics discussed.

BACKGROUND: Bar code medication administration (BCMA) technology is gaining acceptance for its ability to prevent medication administration errors. However, studies suggest that improper use of BCMA technology can yield unsatisfactory error prevention and introduction of new potential medication errors. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the incidence of high-alert medication BCMA triggers and ...

Snake venoms are recognized here as a grossly under-explored resource in pharmacological prospecting. Discoveries in snake systematics demonstrate that former taxonomic bias in research has led to the neglect of thousands of species of potential medical use. Recent discoveries reveal an unexpectedly vast degree of variation in venom composition among ...

State-of-the-art medical care of the victims of current conflicts is generating large quantities of quality clinical data as a by-product. Observational research based on these data is beginning to have a profound influence on the clinical management of both military and civilian trauma patients. Computational modelling based on these datasets ...

Objectives To assess the acceptability of medical abortion as a method for pregnancy termination among young South African women, and further investigate the potential demand for medical abortion. Methods Qualitative study based on in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted with 20 sexually active, female university students in Durban, South Africa. ...

With continuing efforts to reduce medical reimbursements, many radiology service providers have reacted by increasing productivity to maintain revenue. This continuing push to increase speed carries the risk for diminished quality in the form of diagnostic accuracy. Data mining offers the potential to synergistically improve both productivity and quality, through ...

With constrained health-care resources, there is a need to understand barriers to cost-effective medication use. To study physician perceptions about generic medications. Physicians used 5-point Likert scales to report perceptions about cost-related medication nonadherence, the efficacy and quality of generic medications, preferences for generic use, and the implications of dispensing ...

Most spiders use venom to paralyze their prey and are commonly feared for their potential to cause injury to humans. In North America, one species in particular, Loxosceles reclusa (brown recluse spider, Sicariidae), causes the majority of necrotic wounds induced by the Araneae. However, its distributional limitations are poorly understood ...

The 170-year history of the library of the Royal Society of Medicine in Budapest illustrates both that political and cultural context matter and that "medical" libraries, if they survive, in due course become primarily "medical history" libraries. Two of the authors are on the staff of the Semmelweis Medical History ...

our aim was to investigate the course of medication-overuse headache in the general population and the effect of simple advice regarding medication overuse. prospective cohort study. Participants were identified in a cross-sectional epidemiological sample of 30000 persons aged 30-44 from the general Norwegian population. People with chronic headache (≥ 15 ...

Recruitment and retention of participants are critical to the success of a randomised controlled trial. Gaining the views of potential trial participants who decline to enter a trial and of trial participants who stop the trial treatment is important and can help to improve study processes. Limited research on these ...

It is possible to find in the medical literature many articles that have been neglected or ignored, in some cases for many years, but which are worth bringing to light because they report unusual findings that may be of current scientific interest. Resurrecting previously published but neglected hypotheses that have ...

Recent studies have reported that serious violence toward self and others is more common in the first episode of psychosis than after treatment. To estimate the proportion of survivors of potentially lethal suicide attempts with sharp objects who have a diagnosis of psychotic illness, and the proportion of those patients ...

It is one of the most important tasks of the forensic pathologist to explain the forensically relevant medical findings to medical non-professionals. However, it is often difficult to comment on the nature and potential consequences of organ injuries in a comprehensive way to individuals with limited knowledge of anatomy and ...

Doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.s) have historically faced an uphill battle to gain professional legitimacy and credibility in a U.S. medical culture dominated by allopathic medicine. Today, struggles surrounding the negotiation of a professional osteopathic identity can be found among osteopathic medical students who actively debate the merits of a ...

BACKGROUND:: Independence of certain gait characteristics from dopamine replacement therapies highlights its complex pathophysiology in Parkinson's disease (PD). We explored the effect of two different cue strategies on gait characteristics in relation to their response to dopaminergic medications. PATIENTS AND METHODS:: Fifty people with PD (age 69.22 ± 6.6 years) ...

Venous ulceration is the most serious consequence of chronic venous insufficiency. The disease has been known for more than 3.5 millennia with wound care centers established as early as 1500 bc. Unfortunately, still today it is a very poorly managed medical condition by most physicians despite that a great deal ...

We estimated national and state-level potential medical care cost savings achievable through modest reductions in the prevalence of several diseases associated with the same lifestyle-related risk factors. Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component data (2003-2005), we estimated the effects on medical spending over time of reductions in the prevalence ...

Some strokes of unknown etiology may be the result of a paradoxical embolism traversing through a nonfused foramen ovale (patent foramen ovale [PFO]). The utility of percutaneously placed devices for treatment of patients with cryptogenic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and PFO is unknown. In addition, there are no ...

Effectiveness of medical therapies in chronic pancreatitis has been described in small studies of selected patients. To describe frequency and perceived effectiveness of non-analgesic medical therapies in chronic pancreatitis patients evaluated at US referral centres. Using data on 516 chronic pancreatitis patients enrolled prospectively in the NAPS2 Study, we evaluated ...

Increasing trial evidence suggests that a course of medical expulsive therapy is warranted for patients with ureteral stones who are amenable to conservative treatment, and that this efficacious process of care is underused. To better understand the barriers to the dissemination of medical expulsive therapy we analyzed health care claims ...

The production and distribution of counterfeit medications has become a significant global public health issue and though not as rampant in the United States as in other parts of the world, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of cases investigated. The purpose ...

Although rare, renal replacement therapy (RRT) for the treatment of the metabolic, respiratory and hemodynamic complications of intoxications may be required. Understanding the natural clearance of the medications along with their volume of distribution, protein binding and molecular weight will help in understanding the benefit of commencing RRT. This information ...

Urolithiasis is a worldwide problem with significant health and economic burdens. Medical therapy that alters the course of stone disease has enormous medical and financial impact. Urolithiasis is a final manifestation of a broad range of etiologies and pathogenesis. The modest progress in understanding the pathophysiology has hampered successful development ...

Inappropriate prescribing of primarily renally cleared medications in older patients with kidney disease can lead to adverse outcomes. To estimate the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescribing of 21 primarily renally cleared medications based on 2 separate estimates of renal function and to identify factors associated with this form of suboptimal ...