Journal of the American College of Surgeons
-
Despite the increase in firearm injury observed across the country, significant gaps remain relevant to our understanding of how firearm exposure translates to injury. Using acoustic gunshot detection and a collaborative hospital and law enforcement firearm injury database, we sought to identify the relationship between firearm discharge and injury over time. ⋯ The increased burden of firearm injury is related to an overall increase in firearm exposure as measured by the total number of rounds discharged. High-capacity magazines and automatic weaponry are being used with increasing frequency in urban America.
-
Assigning trauma team activation (TTA) levels for trauma patients is a classification task that machine learning models can help optimize. However, performance is dependent on the "ground-truth" labels used for training. Our purpose was to investigate 2 ground truths, the Cribari matrix and the Need for Trauma Intervention (NFTI), for labeling training data. ⋯ To prioritize patient safety, Cribari+NFTI appears best for training a machine learning algorithm to predict the TTA level.
-
Although obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common among patients with obesity and linked to cardiovascular disease, there is a lack of studies evaluating the effects of reaching remission from OSA after metabolic and bariatric surgery. ⋯ The remission rate of OSA was high after metabolic and bariatric surgery. This was in turn associated with reduced risk for death and MACE compared with patients who did not achieve remission reaching a similar risk seen among patients without OSA at baseline. A diligent follow-up of patients who do not reach remission remains important.
-
The limited available data suggest that the Canadian surgical workforce does not reflect the racial diversity of the patient population it serves, despite the well-established benefits of patient-provider race concordance. There have been no studies to date that characterize the systemic and individual challenges faced by Black medical students in matching to and successfully finishing training in a surgical specialty within a Canadian context that can explain this underrepresentation. ⋯ Except for a few surgical programs, medical schools across Canada do not offer a safe space for Black students and trainees to access and complete surgical training. An urgent change is needed to provide diverse mentorship that is transparent, acknowledges the real challenges related to systemic racism and biases, and is inclusive of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.