Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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To explore areas of consensus and disagreement concerning the interhospital transfer of patients with a clinical diagnosis of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. ⋯ There is broad agreement about the type of patient who should be eligible for transfer but disagreements about patient management before and during transfer remain.
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A case is presented in which topical tranexamic acid was used to stop local bleeding from a nipple following piercing in a young man with haemophilia. This case, with a review of the relevant literature, highlights the use of topical tranexamic acid as part of a methodical approach to stop localised, non-massive bleeding, particularly in patients with inherited or acquired coagulopathies.
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Observational Study
Humanisation in the emergency department of an Italian hospital: new features and patient satisfaction.
The goal of this study was to describe and analyse interventions performed in the emergency department (ED) of an Italian hospital with the aim of humanising the patient care pathway. The actions taken are described and the changes analysed to determine whether they resulted in an increased level of patient satisfaction. ⋯ The results demonstrate that the interventions implemented in this study, designed to humanise the ED, improved overall patient satisfaction. Interventions may be taken to reduce the depersonalisation of patients in the emergency room.
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A short-cut review of the literature was carried out to establish whether biological markers (namely carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV)) could reliably predict patients at risk of developing alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Using the below outlined search method and after exclusion of the non-relevant papers, five papers were found to be relevant to the specific question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these are shown in table 1. The clinical bottom line is that CDT/GGT/MCV are not reliable enough as stand-alone markers to predict alcohol withdrawal syndrome in chronic alcohol abusers.