Reduction of amputations of frostbitten limbs by treatment using microwave rewarming.

Drug treatment of limb frostbite injuries is complicated due to the poor delivery of medications to affected tissues. External rewarming of the frostbitten area is risky and does not always result in positive outcomes because the dilatation of superficial vessels with constricted deep vessels can lead to irreversible damage, necrosis, and amputation. One of the techniques to restore perfusion of deep vessels in an affected extremity is rewarming with low-power microwave radiation in a specially designed metal chamber.

A Quality Improvement Intervention to Improve the Efficiency of Arteriovenous Access Placement for Pre-Dialysis Inpatients.

The authors aimed to improve the rate of pre-dialysis arteriovenous (AV) access placement for hospitalized patients with advanced chronic kidney disease. The authors developed and implemented a protocol for hospitalized adult patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate <20 mL/min to streamline the workflow for obtaining AV access. The protocol was piloted on 5 inpatient medical services over 3 months at 1 institution.

Physicians-in-training attitudes on patient safety: 2003 to 2008.

Objective: : Physician trainees will embody medicine's future culture. We assess whether trainees' patient safety attitudes have evolved over time.

Methods: : We anonymously surveyed more than 800 house staff and fourth-year medical students (MS 4) in 2008, at 1 academic institution, with a 19-item questionnaire and compared their responses to the 2003 responses at the same institution on the same questionnaire.

[Relaparotomy and laparostomy in treatment of early postoperative complications].

The cause-and-effect analysis of early (within 3 weeks after the initial surgery) relaparotomy was made, using the experience of 5286 laparotomized patients, of whom 82 (1,55%) had relaparotomy. The main reason of intraabdominal complications was the initial generalized peritonitis in emergency patients (85,4%). In comparison with data of 30 years prescription, the portion of postoperative peritonitis and bleeding had increased, though the number of eventrations and postoperative ileus, on the contrary, decreased.