The American journal of emergency medicine
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The objective of the study is to examine the epidemiologic data of closed malpractice medical claims against emergency departments (EDs) in Taiwanese civil courts and to identify high-risk diseases. ⋯ Emergency physicians (EPs) in Taiwan have similar medico-legal risk as American EPs, with an annual risk of being sued of 0.63%. Almost 90% of EPs win their cases but spend 58 months in litigation, and the mean indemnity payment was $134738. Cases with indemnity paid were mostly categorized as having diagnosis errors, with the leading cause of error as failure to order an appropriate diagnostic test.
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Postresuscitation immunologic dysfunction contributes to the low survival rate after successful resuscitation, but its mechanism remains poorly understood. The mitochondrial apoptosis pathway is initiated by the Bcl-2/Bax-controlled and caspase-3-mediated pathway, this study investigated whether mitochondrial pathway-mediated splenic lymphocyte apoptosis is involved in the postresuscitation immunosuppression in a porcine model of cardiac arrest. ⋯ These results demonstrates that Bcl-2/Bax and caspase-3-mediated mitochondrial apoptosis signaling pathway may contribute to abnormal splenic lymphocyte apoptosis, which may be one of the main pathologic mechanisms of postresuscitation disturbance of immunologic function in a porcine model of cardiac arrest.