Organisational factors associated with burnout among emergency and internal medicine physicians: a qualitative study.

Objective: To identify physician perspectives on factors associated with physician burnout, protective factors against burnout, and to seek potential solutions for this pervasive problem.

Design: A qualitative study with semistructured focus group interviews using a systematic framework analysis.

Setting And Participants: Physicians from general internal medicine (GIM) and the emergency department (ED) at two urban tertiary care hospitals in Vancouver, Canada, were recruited.

A case-crossover analysis of particulate air pollution and cardiac arrhythmia in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

We investigated the relationship between air pollution and incidence of cardiac arrhythmia in a study of patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). Thirty-four patients (ages 15-85 yr, 80% male) with ICDs residing in the Vancouver, Canada, area were included in the analyses, representing all patients attending the 2 ICD clinics in the study region who had recorded at least 1 ICD discharge during the 14 February to 31 December 2000 study period. Air pollutant (PM(2.

Air pollution and cardiac arrhythmias in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated associations between short-term increases in outdoor air pollution concentrations and adverse cardiovascular effects, including cardiac mortality and hospitalizations. One possible mechanism behind this association is that air pollution exposure increases the risk of developing a cardiac arrhythmia. To investigate this hypothesis, dates of implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) discharges were abstracted from patient records in patients attending the two ICD clinics in Vancouver, BC, for the years 1997-2000.