Postgraduate medical journal
-
The safe insertion of a chest drain is a skill doctors across specialties require. Incorrect placement can lead to significant morbidity and even mortality. ⋯ In this audit 45% of juniors surveyed would have placed a chest drain outside the safe triangle recommended by the British Thoracic Society. The common mistake of a choice of insertion site too low should be discussed in postgraduate teaching programmes.
-
Surgeons of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic and revolutionary wars, between 1793 and 1815, were solely responsible for all health care of the officers, men, and boys of their ships. This paper examines the genitourinary medicine and surgery encountered by the naval surgeons at the time of Nelson. Primary sources are examined to explore the presentation, case mix, and management of genitourinary disease during this period. ⋯ The presenting symptoms are grouped together under the following headings; venereal disease, penile pathology, scrotal pain and swelling, urinary symptoms and retention, stone disease and trauma. Examination of these journals permits a glimpse of medical life in the Royal Navy during the time of Nelson. The case load and management of genitourinary disease shows the diversity of presentation to these surgeons.
-
This paper reviews the pathogenesis and management of Clostridium difficile diarrhoea, in particular the management of recurrent episodes.
-
Multicenter Study
Variations in the provision of resuscitation equipment: survey of acute hospitals.
There are wide variations in survival after cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The aim of this survey was to describe how equipment provision of resuscitation trolleys was deployed in a range of clinical ward areas. ⋯ There are variations in the provision of resuscitation equipment in many clinical areas. Hospitals need to review the procedures for ensuring adequate provision of resuscitation equipment in all clinical areas.
-
For the whole of the 20th century it was believed that the Black Death and all the plagues of Europe (1347-1670) were epidemics of bubonic plague. This review presents evidence that this view is incorrect and that the disease was a viral haemorrhagic fever, characterised by a long incubation period of 32 days, which allowed it to be spread widely even with the limited transport of the Middle Ages. ⋯ It is suggested that all the Deltaccr5 alleles originated from a single mutation event that occurred before 1000 BC and the subsequent epidemics of haemorrhagic plague gently forced up its frequency to 5 x 10(-5) at the time of the Black Death. Epidemics of haemorrhagic plague over the next three centuries then steadily raised the frequency in Europe (but not elsewhere) to present day values.