Evaluation of a new Perinatal Mental Health Service in a University Maternity Hospital.

Objectives: Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services (SPMHS) are a new development in Ireland. This service evaluation examined the impact of the introduction of a SPMHS multidisciplinary team (MDT) on prescribing practices and treatment pathways in an Irish maternity hospital.

Methods: Clinical charts were reviewed to collect data on all referrals, diagnoses, pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions delivered in a SPMHS over a 3-week period in 2019.

Conservative management of appendix mass in children.

Of 834 children who had appendicectomy for appendicitis 77 (9.2%) had developed an appendix mass when first seen. Under 6 years of age 25% of appendicitis patients had an appendix mass at presentation and almost 60% of the masses seen were in patients under six years of age.

Sight on social work: the social worker's involvement with the patient undergoing cataract surgery.

A commintment to the concept of total patient care requires consideration of the social and emotional, as well as the physical, problems of the patient. Assessing the quality of the social work service--including adequate attention to problem evaluation, social treatment, and outcome--can help to assure that patients will return to as high a level of social functioning as possible.