[Interim results for the Patients' Rights Act and Infection Protection Act].

Background: The Patient Rights Act has converted court rulings into legal paragraphs. Two new aspects have been introduced: the duty to hand over a copy of the signed written consent form to the patient (in which detailed recommendations are offered) and the obligation of a thorough documentation of findings and treatments within patient files. In addition the legislators, through the Joint Federal Committee (Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss, GBA) have made the introduction of clinical risk management mandatory.

[Determining the indication for primary total hip and knee replacement. Results of external quality assurance of over 270,000 primary total hip and knee replacements].

Background: The German mandatory quality assurance programme collects data from all primary total hip and knee replacements. The quality of the indication is measured by clinical and radiological criteria. The results were analysed in terms of differences in establishing the indication subject to patient and hospital characteristics.

[Educational curriculum and organization in the general hospital].

With sufficient organization and personal activity comprehensive postgraduate medical education can successfully be carried out even at a small surgical department, especially--but not exclusively--in one's early years of postgraduate education and especially if external course offers are made use of. Postgraduate education is endangered not so much because of local circumstances, but because of external influences like official regulations on working-time, the lack of offers for rotations, and restrictions on our duty to take professional care of people.

[Health care contract--position from the viewpoint of small routine health centers].

The position of smaller hospitals is threatened by the new legislation concerning health insurance. The improvement of quality control and the certification of medical skills are possible ways to maintain the availability of the technical armamentarium for sophisticated operations, thus providing the possibilities for emergency treatment and maintaining at the same time medical competence in the eyes of the population, which is an absolutely necessary precondition for economic survival and future prospects.

Comparative response of turkeys and chickens to avian lymphoid leukosis virus.

Response of turkeys and 151(5)x7(1) chickens to prenatal or neonatal inoculation with the avian leukosis virus RAV-1 was compared. Virus-inoculated turkeys and chickens developed viraemia and antibody to. RAV-1.