Quality of transition to end-of-life care for cancer patients in the intensive care unit.

Background: There have been few studies that have evaluated the quality of end-of-life care (EOLC) for cancer patients in the ICU. The aim of this study was to explore the quality of transition to EOLC for cancer patients in ICU.

Methods: The study was undertaken on medical patients admitted to a specialist cancer hospital ICU over 6 months.

Changes in medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions across different years of medical training.

Background: Decisions to forgo life-sustaining medical treatments in terminally ill patients are challenging, but ones that all doctors must face. Few studies have evaluated the impact of medical training on medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions and none have compared them with an age-matched group of non-medical students.

Objective: To assess the effect of medical education on medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions in acutely ill patients.

Randomized controlled trial comparing adaptive-support ventilation with pressure-regulated volume-controlled ventilation with automode in weaning patients after cardiac surgery.

Background: Adaptive-support ventilation (ASV) is a minute ventilation-controlled mode governed by a closed-loop algorithm. With ASV, tidal volume and respiratory rate are automatically adjusted to minimize work of breathing. Studies indicate that ventilation in ASV enables more rapid weaning.

Effects of norepinephrine during intra-abdominal hypertension on renal blood flow in bacteremic dogs.

Objective: Intraabdominal hypertension reduces organ blood flow. Restoring abdominal perfusion pressure (APP) may restore renal blood flow, especially when sepsis is present. The effects of intra-abdominal pressure (IAP), followed by restoration of APP with norepinephrine, on renal blood flow were determined.

Teaching acute care: a course for undergraduates.

Aim: To describe a course designed to help medical undergraduates develop the necessary competencies to recognise and manage acutely ill patients.

Materials And Methods: Primary description by the authors of the content, development and implementation of a course designed to teach competencies recommended by the Acute Care Undergraduate Teaching (ACUTE) project of the Resuscitation Council (UK) and Intercollegiate Board of Training in Intensive Care Medicine. The course format was designed to balance best teaching methods within the context of limited available teaching time and resources.

Avian influenza (H5N1): implications for intensive care.

Background: As influenza A/H5N1 spreads around the globe the risk of an epidemic increases.

Discussion: Review of the cases of influenza A/H5N1 reported to date demonstrates that it causes a severe illness, with a high proportion of patients (63%) requiring advanced organ support. Of these approx.