Background: Patients presenting to emergency departments (EDs) after a nonfatal opioid-involved overdose are at high risk for future overdose and death. Responding to this risk, the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene operates the Relay initiative, which dispatches trained peer "Wellness Advocates" to meet patients in the ED after a suspected opioid-involved overdose and follow them for up to 90 days to provide support, education, referrals to treatment, and other resources using a harm reduction framework.
Methods: In this article, we describe the protocol for a multisite randomized controlled trial of Relay.
Carbon monoxide exposure is a relatively unknown risk of smoking hookah. Dozens of cases of hookah-associated carbon monoxide toxicity have been described over the past decades, but smoking hookah is generally perceived as safe. Only recently have larger series of hookah-associated carbon monoxide toxicity been published.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdverse reactions from over-the-counter medications present a challenge to physicians. Homeopathic medicine is an alternative practice, originating in Germany and gaining popularity in the United States. It utilizes dilute preparations of substances in order to treat and cure disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOn June 18, 2015, a woman aged 30 years was brought to the Staten Island University Hospital Emergency Department (ED) in New York by her mother, who reported that the patient had become acutely confused at home, was repeating herself, and did not recognize her family members. She had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder for which she took lithium, and she had a history notable for polysubstance abuse (use of three or more addictive drugs in the past 12 months). Her other medications included risperidone (an antipsychotic), benztropine (an anticholinergic), and bupropion (an antidepressant).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have previously reported spectral differences for cells at different stages of the eukaryotic cell division cycle. These differences are due to the drastic biochemical and morphological changes that occur as a consequence of cell proliferation. We correlate these changes in FTIR absorption and Raman spectra of individual cells with their biochemical age (or phase in the cell cycle), determined by immunohistochemical staining to detect the appearance (and subsequent disappearance) of cell-cycle-specific cyclins, and/or the occurrence of DNA synthesis.
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