Medicine, science, and the law
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Deaths by drowning are a serious public health problem worldwide. They are under-investigated and hence under-estimated. Drowning is an important and preventable cause of death. ⋯ The incidence of drowning declines as age advances. The highest number (96) of victims was under ten years of age. Deaths due to drowning are increasing especially among male children and young adults.
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The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of physicians and nurses on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in advanced cancer patients in Greece. Two hundred and fifteen physicians and 250 nurses from various hospitals in Greece completed a questionnaire concerning issues on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. ⋯ Forty-seven per cent of physicians and 45.2% of nurses would prefer the legalization of a terminally ill patient's hastened death; in the case of such a request, 64.2% of physicians and 55.2% of nurses (p = 0.06) would consider it if it was legal. The majority of the participants tended to disagree with euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide in terminally ill cancer patients, probably due to the fact that these acts in Greece are illegal.
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A suicide pact is an agreement between two people to end their lives. The presence of an over-dependent relationship and a threat to the maintenance of closeness are strongly associated with the attempt. We present a case of a suicide pact where a 19-year-old female and a 20-year-old male who were lovers committed suicide by hanging because of opposition to their marriage from the family members.
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This paper describes an audit of the basic standard of record keeping for inpatient clinical records. Following an initial audit, the Royal College of Physicians' inpatient record keeping standards 6 and 7 were adopted. ⋯ A significant improvement was achieved in many areas including recording of time (19-82%), name of author (60-89%), location of patient (58-94%) and identity of the most senior doctor present (68-89%), (p<0.001). The Royal College of Physicians' record keeping standards through the use of audit can lead to considerable improvement in the standard of record keeping within psychiatric practice.