Chest
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Throughout medical history, physicians have rarely formed unions and/or carried out strikes. In a profession faced with the turmoil of health reform and increasing pressure to change their practices and lifestyles, will physicians resort to unionization for collective bargaining, and will a strike weapon be used to fight back against the array of corporate and government powers involved in the transformation of the American health-care system? This article examines the question of whether there could be such a thing as an ethical physician strike. Although physicians have not historically used collective bargaining or the strike weapon, the rapidly changing practice environment in the United States might push physicians and other health-care professionals toward unionization. This article considers the ethical questions that would arise if physicians started taking advantage of labor laws, and it lays out criteria for an ethical strike.
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This review is on the pulmonary complications of snakebites, which can have fatal consequences. We identified three common themes as reported in the literature regarding envenomation: generalized neuromuscular paralysis affecting airway and respiratory muscles, pulmonary edema, and pulmonary hemorrhages or thrombosis due to coagulopathy. Respiratory paralysis and pulmonary edema can be due to either elapid or viper bites, whereas pulmonary complications of coagulopathy are exclusively reported with viper bites. The evidence for each complication, timeline of appearance, response to treatment, and details of pathophysiology are discussed.
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It is unclear whether thoracoscopic (video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery [VATS]) pneumonectomy improves outcomes compared with open approaches. ⋯ Attempting thoracoscopic pneumonectomy at an experienced center appears safe but does not yield the early pain/complication reductions observed for VATS lobectomy. There may be long-term pain/survival advantages for certain stages that warrant further study and refinement of this approach.