An ageing trauma population: The Auckland experience.

Aim: As the population ages, the number of elderly patients suffering injuries is increasing. Reports from North America have shown an increasing proportion of elderly admissions with a disproportionate number of deaths. However, this trend has not yet been examined in New Zealand.

Resuscitative thoracotomy in penetrating trauma.

The resuscitative thoracotomy (RT) is an important procedure in the management of penetrating trauma. As it is performed only in patients with peri-arrest physiology or overt cardiac arrest, survival is low. Experience is also quite variable depending on volume of penetrating trauma in a particular region.

Breakdown of the consent process at a quaternary medical center: our full disclosure.

Circumstances may arise in the intensive care unit (ICU) when the physician is unable to obtain informed consent. We undertook this study to determine the variations in the consent process. An anonymous survey was distributed to all critical care nurses (RN), resident physicians (RES), advanced practitioners (AP), and attending physicians (ATT).

Vena cava interruption.

Anticoagulation has been proven to be effective in preventing and treating deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolus. However, many critically ill patients are unable to receive anticoagulation or suffer recurrent venous thromboembolism despite adequate treatment. This article examines the use of vena cava filters in the critically ill.

Operative experience in the era of duty hour restrictions: is broad-based general surgery training coming to an end?

Since the institution of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) resident work hour restrictions, conflicting evidence exists regarding the impact on resident case volume with most data from single-institution studies. We examined the effect of restrictions on national resident operative experience. After permission from the ACGME, we reviewed the publicly available national resident case log data (1999 through 2008) maintained on the ACGME web site (www.

Has the pendulum swung too far? The impact of missed abdominal injuries in the era of nonoperative management.

Nonoperative management for traumatic injuries has significantly influenced trauma care during the last decade. We undertook this study to assess the impact of nontherapeutic laparotomies for suspected abdominal injuries compared with delayed laparotomies for questionable abdominal injuries for patients with abdominal trauma. The records of patients admitted to the trauma service between 2002 and 2007 who underwent laparotomies deemed nontherapeutic or delayed were retrospectively reviewed.