Traveler's myopericarditis.

Colitis caused by Shigella is an uncommon etiology of infectious diarrhea in developed countries, usually presenting as traveler's diarrhea. Aside from clinical intestinal manifestations, shigellosis can present with a wide variety of extra-intestinal symptoms. We present the case of a 38-year-old man with diarrhea, fever, and chest pain that started after a holiday in Cape Verde (Africa).

[Appropriateness of hospitalization in a ward of internal medicine--using the Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol].

Introduction: The Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (AEP) is an instrument to study the appropriate use of hospital beds based in objective criteria that classify a hospital admission as appropriate or inappropriate.

Object: Evaluate the appropriateness of hospital admissions and stays of the patients of our Internal Medicine Department using the concurrent version of AEP.

Method: Transversal study where was evaluated the clinical record of the patients admitted to our Department of Internal Medicine on March 13th of 2003, excluding all these who were admitted the day of the study.

Illegible handwriting in medical records.

In clinical records many items are handwritten and difficult to read. We examined clinical histories in a representative sample of case notes from a Spanish general hospital. Two independent observers assigned legibility scores, and a third adjudicated in case of disagreement.