Risk Factors for Wound Infection in Outpatients With Lower Extremity Burns.

Background: We sought to evaluate risk factors for wound infection in patients with lower extremity (LE) burn.

Methods: Adults presenting with LE burn from January 2014 to July 2015 were included. Data regarding demographics, injury characteristics, and outcomes were obtained.

Efficiency of care and cost for common emergency general surgery conditions: Comparison by surgeon training and practice.

Background: Our institutional emergency general surgery service is staffed by both trauma and critical care-trained surgeons and other boarded general surgeons and subspecialists. We compared efficiency of care for common emergency general surgery conditions between trauma and critical care-trained surgeons and boarded general surgeons and subspecialists.

Methods: Adults admitted between February 2014 and May 2017 with acute appendicitis, acute cholecystitis, intestinal obstruction, incarcerated hernia, or other acute abdominal diagnoses seen by emergency general surgery service were included.

Attitudes Toward Communication and Collaboration After Participation in a Mock Page Program: A Pilot of an Interprofessional Approach to Surgical Residency Preparation.

Objective: A source of insecurity among new physicians and new nurses is communicating and managing acute changes in patient condition. Mock page programs are an effective method for teaching communication and clinical decision-making skills to medical students. Joint participation in a mock page program provides a unique opportunity for medical and nursing students to practice communication, collaboration, and clinical decision-making in a low-risk learning environment.

A surgical residency preparatory course for senior medical students leads to earlier independence in ACGME competencies.

Background: It is unknown whether surgery residency preparatory courses lead to earlier independent practice.

Methods: A four-week surgical residency preparatory course was offered to graduating medical students. Upon entering residency, participants reported supervised and unsupervised performance of patient management and procedural competencies.

Postoperative pain control.

Prevention and control of postoperative pain are essential. Inadequate treatment of postoperative pain continues to be a major problem after many surgeries and leads to worse outcomes, including chronic postsurgical pain. Optimal management of postoperative pain requires an understanding of the pathophysiology of pain, methods available to reduce pain, invasiveness of the procedure, and patient factors associated with increased pain, such as anxiety, depression, catastrophizing, and neuroticism.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy after minor burn injury.

The relationship between severe emotional stress and subsequent acute cardiac dysfunction has been anecdotally noted for decades. In fact, cases of "death by fright" have been described since ancient times, and a growing body of evidence suggests that this phenomenon is due to an acute catecholamine-induced cardiomyopathy. The authors present a case of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy complicating a minor burn injury that occurred during an operating room fire.

A prospective study of the impact of a critical care pharmacist assigned as a member of the multidisciplinary burn care team.

A critical care clinical pharmacy specialist was assigned to the burn center to make scheduled rounds with the physicians and to attend the weekly multidisciplinary burn team rounds. A prospective 6-month study was completed to 1) determine the clinical impact of the pharmacist's interventions and 2) quantify cost savings generated by these interventions. Prospective data concerning clinical interventions by the pharmacist were collected during a 6-month period.

Burns with multiple trauma.

The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence, mechanisms, and outcomes of management in patients with multisystem trauma and associated burn injury. A retrospective review was performed of patients admitted with combined burns and trauma from 1990 through 1999. Mechanism of injury, extent of burns, associated injuries, Injury Severity Score (ISS), and patient outcomes were identified.