Effectiveness of 8-week TReatment with vortioxetine on depressive symptoms in major depressive disorder patients with comorbid generalized anxiety disorder in UAE (TRUE).

Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability and results in excessive utilization of healthcare resources worldwide. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region shows a high prevalence of depressive disorders. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and MDD have the highest rate of comorbidity of all mood and anxiety disorders, ranging from 40 to 98% in drug studies.

Examining Burnout, Depression, and Attitudes Regarding Drug Use Among Lebanese Medical Students During the 4 Years of Medical School.

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of burnout, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms and attitudes toward substance use in medical students as well as their evolution during the 4 years of medical school.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) between September and December 2016. In total, 176 out of 412 eligible medical students responded.

Refugees in Conflict: Creating a Bridge Between Traditional and Conventional Health Belief Models.

Unlabelled: The recent wave of migration from Middle Eastern countries to Europe presents significant challenges to the European health profession. These include the inevitable communication gap created by differences in health care beliefs between European oncologists, health care practitioners, and refugee patients. This article presents the conclusions of a workshop attended by a group of clinicians and researchers affiliated with the Middle East Cancer Consortium, as well as four European-based health-related organizations.

Integrating Complementary and Traditional Practices in Middle-Eastern Supportive Cancer Care.

The Middle East is a promising arena in which researchers can explore the interchange between cross-cultural traditional medicine and supportive cancer care, as provided within an integrative oncology setting. Integrative oncology research and clinical practice in this part of the world have been focusing, for the most part, on the use of herbal medicine and mind-body-spiritual modalities, both of which are deeply rooted in traditional medical care. A regional, multinational, and interdisciplinary collaboration is currently being undertaken as part of the academic activities of the Middle-East Research Group in Integrative Oncology (MERGIO).

Middle Eastern Conflicts: Implications for Refugee Health in the European Union and Middle Eastern Host Countries.

Until very recently, health care in conflict settings was based on a model developed in the second half of the twentieth century. Things have changed, and present civil wars, such as those that are currently taking place in the Middle East, do not address the complexity of the ongoing armed conflicts in countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These conflicts have caused a significant increase in the number of refugees in the region, as well as in Europe.

Gaps in end-of-life care.

End-of-life care is an important aspect of medical practice. Individual physicians and the medical community must be committed to the compassionate and competent provision of care to dying patients and their families. Patients rightfully expect their physicians to care for them and provide them with medical assistance as they are dying.

Can we overcome the effect of conflicts in rendering palliative care? An introduction to the Middle Eastern Cancer Consortium (MECC).

The Middle East has been experiencing an ongoing political conflict for the past several decades. This situation has been characterized by hostility often leading to violence of all sources. At times, such a conflict led to the outbreak of a military war, which was followed by an enmity between religious, ethnic, cultural, and national populations.

Opioids for cancer pain in the Middle Eastern countries: a physician point of view.

Cancer is an increasing problem in the Middle Eastern (ME) countries. It is the fourth leading cause of death in this region. At present, resources for cancer control in the ME countries as a whole are not only inadequate but directed almost exclusively to treatment.

Pain relief is a human right.

For centuries, medical and surgical treatment has emphasized saving the life of the patient rather than ameliorating the patient's pain, particularly when there were few options for the latter. Today at the dawn of the 21st century, the best available evidence indicates a major gap between an increasingly understanding of the pathophysiology of pain and widespread inadequacy of its treatment. Epidemiologic evidence has proven that chronic pain is a widespread public health issue.

Management of cancer pain: different intervention techniques.

A considerable number of patients with cancer suffer considerable pain during their disease. Most of these patients achieve analgesia using opioids and adjuvant medication; however, 5-10% of them still experience inadequate pain control despite aggressive combined pharmacological therapy and their use is often associated with adverse events. Providing effective pain management for patients with severe pain that affects quality of life confronts the oncologist or pain specialist with clinical challenges that often require multifaceted therapeutic measures.

Implementation of palliative care in Lebanon: past, present, and future.

The goal of palliative care (PC) is to relieve suffering. PC is an urgent humanitarian need worldwide for people with cancer and other chronic fatal diseases. PC in Lebanon has made some important strides in the last decade but it is still in its infancy.

[Violence against children].

The Convention of Human Rights defines violence as "all forms of physical or mental violence, injury and abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse". Violence against children cuts across boundaries of geography, race, class, religion and culture. It occurs in homes, schools and streets ; in places of work and entertainment, and in care and detention centers.

[Recommendations on the relationship between surgeons and anesthesiologists as part of the health care team].

Surgeon and anesthesiologist work as a team. Physicians of different but complementary specialties, they work jointly in the management of the patient during the pre, per and postoperative periods, with the main objective of ensuring the best quality of care and the greatest safety. However, the unprecedented development of new technologies during the last decades, deeply modified the conditions of exercise of these two specialities.

Current trends in medical ethics education.

The unprecedented progress in biomedical sciences and technology during the last few decades has resulted in great transformations in the concepts of health and disease, health systems and healthcare organization and practices. Those changes have been accompanied by the emergence of a broad range of ethical dilemmas that confront the health professionals more frequently in an increasing range of problems and situations. Health care that has been practiced for centuries on the basis of a direct doctor-patient relationship has been increasingly transformed to a more complex process integrating the health-team, the patient (healthcare seeker) and the community.