Nowhere is redundancy more indispensable than extended range cave diving. Training and practice in this discipline ensure divers are equipped with backup regulators, gauges, lights, and adequate breathing gas for a safe exit, emergencies, and decompression. Depending on penetration distances and depth, open circuit cave diving may require carrying more gas cylinders than can be logistically managed by the diver themselves while maintaining safe gas supply margins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe surgical setting is a highly complex environment where, in ideal conditions, everything should be under control to ensure a positive outcome. However, the existing complexity opens the possibility for multiple failures along the process and many of those failures are related to what is call the non-technical skills of the members of the team. We cannot eradicate human error, but we can try to avoid future mistakes in our daily practice introducing the awareness for providing a high-quality care in which patient safety is crucial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To gather multicenter data on the incidence of second-stage cesarean sections and suggest alternative methods by which the data can be represented.
Methods: Retrospective, observational study over a 12-month study period. Numbers of term, singleton live births were collated from each of six maternity units.
The recent outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has prompted healthcare professionals to re-design and modify the standards of care and operating procedures relevant to dealing with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19. The aim of this review is to highlight the key recommendations related to obstetric anaesthesia from scientific bodies in the United Kingdom and United States and to summarize recently developed and implemented clinical pathways for care of obstetric patients - specifically those requiring urgent general anaesthesia for caesarean section within a large maternity unit in London. The need to perform an emergency operative delivery in a timely manner while ensuring clinicians are suitably equipped and protected represents a uniquely challenging scenario, given the higher risk of viral transmission with aerosol generating procedures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe improvement of surgical outcomes has been achieved working under the assumption that they are mainly the result of technical skills. This model, although correct, is not exhaustive and has left out many variables that affect outcomes, of which a number can be grouped under the label of non-technical skills, which is a subset of human factors. Non-technical skills are developed to facilitate a shared mental model between team members, teams and their operational environment.
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