Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Rotating shiftwork schedules: can we enhance physician adaptation to night shifts?
To evaluate the effectiveness of a broad, literature-based night shiftwork intervention for enhancement of emergency physicians' (EPs') adaptation to night rotations. ⋯ Although the experimental intervention was successfully implemented, it failed to significantly improve attending physicians' sleep, performance, or mood on night shifts. A decrease in speed of intubation, vigilance reaction times, and subjective alertness was evident each time the physicians rotated through the night shift. These findings plus the limited sleep across all conditions and shifts suggest that circadian-mediated disruptions of waking neurobehavioral functions and sleep deprivation are problems in EPs.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Role of pilot instrument proficiency in the safety of helicopter emergency medical services.
To determine whether instrument-proficient pilots would more safely manage a flight into unplanned instrument meteorologic conditions (IMC) than would nonproficient pilots. ⋯ Instrument-proficient pilots more safely manage an unexpected encounter with IMC. Helicopter EMS programs should strongly consider maintaining instrument proficiency to enhance safety.
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To assess the percentage of adult patients presenting to an urban ED who have a written advance directive (AD) and to determine whether age, sex, a patient's perception of his or her health status, and having a regular physician are associated with the patient's having an AD. ⋯ Only 27% of the adult patients presenting to the ED had an AD. Older age, the patient's perception of his or her health status as ill, and having a "regular" physician increased the likelihood of having an AD.