Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Aug 2019
Introduction of portable bedside echocardiography to acute general medicine.
We reviewed the medical records of all patients who underwent portable bedside echocardiography under general medicine over a 15-month period. The mean age of patients was 67 years (range 16-95) (n = 201). Indications for scanning included syncope (27%), murmur (17%) and dyspnoea (14%); findings included valve abnormalities (46%), left ventricular hypertrophy (26%) and dilated left ventricle (15%). Bedside echocardiography is a useful extension of the physical examination but is operator-dependent, and its routine use in general medicine will depend on the availability of training, group reporting sessions and quality assurance.
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This update restates the legal limits of consent to medical treatment. It reviews the classic statement of law set down by the case of R v Brown, where 'proper medical treatment' was stated to be exempted from the ordinary laws of consent. This position has been recently developed further by the 2018 English case of R v BM where a non-medical body modification artist was convicted for having carried out substantive body modification procedures. This article considers how these developments may affect Australian law, particularly laws pertaining to cosmetic procedures.