Revista médica de Chile
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Revista médica de Chile · Nov 2012
Case Reports[Spontaneous activity of cutaneous nociceptors in patients with painful polyneuropathy. Report of three patients].
Painful polyneuropathy may result from selective impairment of small diameter nerve fibers, while tactile and motor functions are preserved. In these patients clinical and electrophysiological assessment is usually unrevealing. We report three patients with a pure painful polyneuropathy. ⋯ Intraneural recordings from the peroneal nerve demonstrated abnormal spontaneous activity in 8 of 17 nociceptive afferents. One of them displayed double firing reflecting impulse multiplication. These results support the notion that patients with pain or pruritus with a distal distribution similar to a polyneuropathy, could have small diameter afferent fiber damage, despite normal function of large diameter fibers.
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Revista médica de Chile · Nov 2012
[A clinical teaching course for residents improves self-perception about preparation to teach].
Medical doctors need to be competent to teach patients, their families, students, and the health care team. In a previous study we determined that although the residents attach great importance to have teaching skills, they do not feel prepared to meet this role. ⋯ A clinical teaching course for residents improves their self-perception of preparation to teach and enhances motivation for clinical teaching.
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Revista médica de Chile · Nov 2012
[Airway humidification practices in Chilean intensive care units].
In patients with an artificial airway, inspired gases can be humidified and heated using a passive (heat and moisture exchange filter - HMEF), or an active system (heated humidifier). ⋯ In Chile the main method to humidify and heat inspired gases in patients with an artificial airway is the HMEF. Although there are clear indications for the use of heated humidifiers, they are seldom employed.
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Revista médica de Chile · Nov 2012
[The law of rights and duties of persons in health care from the viewpoint of bioethics].
The enactment of Law 20.584 in April of 2012 promotes a change in the physician-patient relationship, with recognition of people's rights and duties in healthcare by all the health professional and entities. The legal obligation, and not only the ethical one, as it currently happens, for humane treatment and regard for the dignity of the sick, informed consent, medical data confidentiality, the possibility to reject treatments, etc., is established. This review analyzes the contents of this law, especially those parts affecting physicians. ⋯ This Law begins to consider patients' autonomy shyly. However, from a bioethical viewpoint, there are still many issues to be perfected such as healthcare humanization, excellence of patient care, healthcare quality and medical professionalism, considering competence, social service, charity and solidarity. It is a first step that must be supplemented with a greater development of medical deontology, and the development of clinical and institutional bioethics.
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Revista médica de Chile · Oct 2012
Biography Historical Article[The Edwin Smith papyrus in the history of medicine].
The historical bases of occidental medicine precede the Hippocratic corpus. Between the third and first millennium B. C. ⋯ PES is an insight into how medicine was practiced in ancient Egypt. Historically, it is also the first medical document based on objective observations, excluding all magical and religious perceptions, as well as the underlying cultural framework. The similarity between the current clinical method and that described in the Smith papyrus, strongly suggests the idea that part of the origin of medicine, can be found in ancient Egypt.