Objectives: Little is known about how clinicians perceive prognostic uncertainty. Our study objective was to identify factors that influence how prognostic uncertainty is viewed by physicians, as it relates to their communications with families.
Design: Thirty semi-structured interviews with qualitative content analysis (9 surgeons, 16 intensivists, 3 nurse practitioners, and 2 "other" clinicians). We analyzed interviews using qualitative description with constant comparative techniques.
Setting: Open medical, surgical, neurosurgical, and cardiovascular intensive care units (ICUs) in a 900-bed academic, tertiary Houston hospital.
Interventions: None.
Main Results: We identified 2 main factors that influence how clinicians perceive prognostic uncertainty and their perceptions about whether and why they communicate prognostic uncertainties to families: (1) Communicating Uncertainty to "Soften the Blow"; and (2) Communicating Uncertainty in Response to Clinicians' Interpretations of Surrogate Decision Makers' Perceptions of Prognostic Uncertainty. We also identified several subthemes.
Conclusions: Clinician-family interactions influence how clinicians perceive prognostic uncertainty in their communications with patients or families. We discuss ethical and clinical implications of our findings.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0825859719845005 | DOI Listing |
Diagnostics (Basel)
January 2025
Research Center on Thromboembolic Diseases and Antithrombotic Treatment, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, 21100 Varese, Italy.
Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is a pathological condition that develops when a thrombus forms within the deep venous system. Typically, it involves the lower limbs and, less frequently, the upper extremities or other unusual districts such as cerebral or splanchnic veins. While leg DVT itself is rarely fatal and occasionally can lead to limb-threatening implications, its most fearsome complication, namely pulmonary embolism, is potentially fatal and significantly contributes to increased healthcare costs and impaired quality of life in affected patients and caregivers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGynecol Obstet Fertil Senol
January 2025
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Hôpital Saint Joseph, Marseille, France; Image2 center, Marseille, France. Electronic address:
The management of a fetus suspected of having a variation in genital development is a complex situation. In cases of complete discordance or an unusual appearance of the external genitalia (EG), management always begins with a diagnostic morphological ultrasound. This ultrasound aims to provide detailed imaging of the EG and internal genitalia (IG), focusing on identifying the presence of Müllerian derivatives and detecting any associated malformations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cancer Res Ther
December 2024
Department of Colorectal Surgery, Shanghai Cancer Center, Fudan University, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China.
Objective: Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) serve as pivotal tumor markers in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, uncertainty persists regarding the prognostic significance of the two tumor markers when falling within the normal range. We attempt to compare the prognostic differences of tumor markers at different levels within the reference range.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosurg Anesthesiol
January 2025
Stroke Medicine.
Processed electroencephalography (pEEG) is increasingly used to titrate the depth of anesthesia. Whether such intra-procedural pEEG monitoring can offer additional information on cerebral perfusion or acute focal or global cerebral ischemia is unknown. This scoping review aimed to provide a narrative analysis of the current literature reporting the potential role of pEEG in adults with acute cerebral ischemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioengineering (Basel)
December 2024
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and perihematomal edema (PHE) are key imaging markers of primary and secondary brain injury in hemorrhagic stroke. Accurate segmentation and quantification of ICH and PHE can help with prognostication and guide treatment planning. In this study, we combined Swin-Unet Transformers with nnU-NETv2 convolutional network for segmentation of ICH and PHE on non-contrast head CTs.
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