Prognostic indicators and outcomes of hospitalised COVID-19 patients with neurological disease: An individual patient data meta-analysis.

Background: Neurological COVID-19 disease has been reported widely, but published studies often lack information on neurological outcomes and prognostic risk factors. We aimed to describe the spectrum of neurological disease in hospitalised COVID-19 patients; characterise clinical outcomes; and investigate factors associated with a poor outcome.

Methods: We conducted an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis of hospitalised patients with neurological COVID-19 disease, using standard case definitions.

Hospital-Acquired Blood Stream Infection in an Adult Intensive Care Unit.

Background: Hospital-acquired blood stream infections are a common and serious complication in critically ill patients.

Methods: A retrospective case series was undertaken investigating the incidence and causes of bacteraemia in an adult intensive care unit with a high proportion of postoperative cardiothoracic surgical and oncology patients.

Results: 405 eligible patients were admitted to the intensive care unit over the course of nine months.

Near peer-assisted learning to improve confidence for medical students' situational judgment tests.

Background: The situational judgment test (SJT) was introduced for all graduating United Kingdom medical students in 2013. Students have anxiety over time pressures and heavy weighting of a single examination.

Aims: This study aimed to examine formal SJT preparation available, perceptions of a near peer-delivered course, and to measure improvement in students' confidence.

Invasive bacterial infections in Gambians with sickle cell anemia in an era of widespread pneumococcal and hemophilus influenzae type b vaccination.

There is relatively little data on the etiology of bacterial infections in patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA) in West Africa, and no data from countries that have implemented conjugate vaccines against both Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).We conducted a retrospective analysis of SCA patients admitted to the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia, during a 5-year period when there was high coverage of Hib and Pneumococcal conjugate vaccination. We evaluated 161 admissions of 126 patients between April 2010 and April 2015.

Can we prevent antimicrobial resistance by using antimicrobials better?

Since their development over 60 years ago, antimicrobials have become an integral part of healthcare practice worldwide. Recently, this has been put in jeopardy by the emergence of widespread antimicrobial resistance, which is one of the major problems facing modern medicine. In the past, the development of new antimicrobials kept us one step ahead of the problem of resistance, but only three new classes of antimicrobials have reached the market in the last thirty years.