Addressing public stigma and disparities among persons with mental illness: the role of federal policy.

Stigma against mental illness is a complex construct with affective, cognitive, and behavioral components. Beyond its symbolic value, federal law can only directly address one component of stigma: discrimination. This article reviews three landmark antidiscrimination laws that expanded protections over time for individuals with mental illness.

Use of machine-learning classifiers to predict requests for preoperative acute pain service consultation.

Objective:   The purpose of this project was to determine whether machine-learning classifiers could predict which patients would require a preoperative acute pain service (APS) consultation.

Design:   Retrospective cohort.

Setting:   University teaching hospital.

Regional anesthesia as compared with general anesthesia for surgery in geriatric patients with hip fracture: does it decrease morbidity, mortality, and health care costs? Results of a single-centered study.

Introduction: Hip fracture in geriatric patients has a substantial economic impact and represents a major cause of morbidity and mortality in this population. At our institution, a regional anesthesia program was instituted for patients undergoing surgery for hip fracture. This retrospective cohort review examines the effects of regional anesthesia (from mainly after July 2007) vs general anesthesia (mainly prior to July 2007) on morbidity, mortality and hospitalization costs.

Social network analysis and quantification of a prototypical acute pain medicine and regional anesthesia service.

Objective: The objective of this study was to quantify the network complexity, information flow, and effect of critical-node failures on a prototypical regional anesthesia and perioperative pain medicine (RAPPM) service using social network analysis.

Design: Pilot cross-sectional investigation.

Setting: This study was conducted at a prototypical single-center, multi-location academic anesthesiology department with an active RAPPM service.

Unintended epidural placement of a thoracic paravertebral catheter in a patient with severe chest trauma.

Objective: Severe pain can lead to ventilatory compromise in patients with multiple rib fractures. Regional anesthetic techniques, including continuous thoracic paravertebral and thoracic epidural blocks, can be useful in reducing this pain and subsequent morbidity due to respiratory compromise. Thoracic paravertebral block can result in significant complications.

Refraction and aberration across the horizontal central 10 degrees of the visual field.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to measure refraction and aberrations across the horizontal central visual field.

Methods: Cycloplegic refraction was measured on eight subjects at 13 points across the horizontal central 10 degrees of the retina using a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. Refractions were converted into mean sphere (M), 90 degrees to 180 degrees astigmatism (J180), and 45 degrees to 135 degrees astigmatism (J45) components.