Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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This study aimed to investigate how trauma characteristics and outcomes differ between genders in a rural hospital. ⋯ Men were at an increased risk for trauma, especially assault. The percentage of women injured and admitted to the ED due to assault was low compared with statistics reported in the literature. However, assault is the most common cause of trauma among women. The high per cent of hospitalisation and transfer among women may indicate that women are exposed to more severe trauma, and therefore experience increased morbidity compared with men.
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Historical Article
Ambulance services in London and Great Britain from 1860 until today: a glimpse of history gleaned mainly from the pages of contemporary journals.
Little has been published on the subject of civil ambulance services and their development from the mid-19th century in the UK until modern times. There is limited secondary literature available which provides useful background information on the subject and most organisations may give brief histories of their early days but these sources lack historical adequacy in terms of detail. ⋯ In particular, the two World Wars are seen to be the stepwise stimuli to providing a necessary service to the British population where the will to achieve this had hitherto been lacking at a parliamentary level. The history of the London Ambulance Service is chosen because more is written about it in these journals but services in other British cities and the USA are mentioned since they played a part in influencing change.
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The objective of this study was to determine if undergraduate paramedics could accurately perform common drug calculations and basic mathematical computations normally required in the workplace. ⋯ This study suggests undergraduate paramedics have deficiencies in performing accurate calculations with conceptual errors indicating a fundamental lack of mathematical understanding.
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There is a growing number of community first responder (CFR) groups in the UK who provide emergency care in their local communities. ⋯ Though volunteers' motives had some commonalities with the limited literature, there were issues that were unique to the CFR context. The flexibility and autonomy of CFR volunteering was particularly attractive to volunteers. It remains to be seen how sustainable the CFR model is.
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A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether adrenaline use during cardiac arrest improves long-term survival. A total of 209 papers was found using the reported search, of which seven represented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are tabulated. The clinical bottom line is that the evidence is strong for improved short-term survival when adrenaline administered during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) (return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and/or survival to hospital admission), but may be associated with worse long-term survival and neurological outcome.