Clin Med
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Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is an increasingly available diagnostic and therapeutic tool used within the U. K. it has wide applications both in the gastrointestinal tract and mediastinum with its current main uses being in the staging of luminal malignancies and assessment of pancreatic and subepithelial lesions. The emergence of linear EUS has opened up new therapeutic avenues with fine needle aspiration, trucut biopsies, coeliac plexus blocks and transmural pseudocyst drainage all now possible. Future developments include localised brachytherapy/chemotherapy and alcohol ablation of unresectable pancreatic malignancies and EUS-guided endoscopic surgery.
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Attitudes to death are non-rational and culturally determined. This is relevant to concerns about shortages of organs for transplantation. ⋯ Consent is the fundamental principle of the Human Tissue Act 2004 in considering use of organs after death. These legal and ethical concerns create difficulties to be explored in a subsequent paper.
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This one-day conference brought together around 100 doctors from a wide range of specialties and at different stages of their careers to examine areas that are of increasing importance to the profession as a whole. Information gathered and imparted to institutions such as the postgraduate deaneries, royal colleges and specialist societies will add to the impetus for cultural and organisational changes so that the real potential of doctors working less than full time is not lost to the economy, NHS or patients.
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A survey of 445 doctors in Yorkshire was conducted to ascertain their knowledge and awareness of alcohol units. Only 58% had some knowledge, and general practitioners scored better (69%) than hospital doctors (45%). ⋯ Junior doctors who often deal with alcohol-related problems in their day-to-day hospital work had a poor knowledge. There needs to be a greater emphasis on alcohol and alcohol-related problems (including how to calculate alcohol units) in undergraduate and postgraduate curricula to improve doctors' knowledge and awareness of this important subject.