Postgraduate medical journal
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Historical Article
Learning from the past in the COVID-19 era: rediscovery of quarantine, previous pandemics, origin of hospitals and national healthcare systems, and ethics in medicine.
After the dramatic coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on 11 March 2020, a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Most countries worldwide imposed a quarantine or lockdown to their citizens, in an attempt to prevent uncontrolled infection from spreading. ⋯ In this educational paper, a historical overview from the sacred temples of ancient Greece-the cradle of medicine-to modern hospitals, along with the conceive of healthcare systems, is provided. A few foods for thought as to the conflict between ethics in medicine and shortage of personnel and financial resources in the coronavirus disease 2019 era are offered as well.
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In this study, we aimed to investigate the usefulness of P wave peak time (PWPT), a novel ECG parameter, in patients who were diagnosed with acute ischaemic stroke (IS) and had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) on Holter monitoring. ⋯ To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a significant relationship between PWPT in lead DII and PAF among patients with acute IS.
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This case-control study was conducted to investigate the relationship between serum nesfatin-1 levels and nutritional status and blood parameters in patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. ⋯ Anthropometric indices and blood parameters were correlated with serum nesfatin-1 levels in patients with metabolic syndrome. More clinical trials may be performed to establish the relationship between serum nesfatin-1 levels and nutritional status.
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Reducing diagnostic error is a major issue in medical care. Various strategies have been proposed to prevent diagnostic error. ⋯ The current study describes new diagnostic strategies using cognitive forcing. Horizontal tracing is a strategy to identify comorbidities reliably, and vertical tracing identifies an underlying condition.