Internal medicine
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Digital health, which encompasses digital medicine and therapy, integrates advanced technologies across healthcare. Central to this transformation is 'digitization,' which converts continuous analog data into a discrete digital form. However, this process is challenging. ⋯ Second, "digit bias," a cognitive distortion, emerges in the interpretation phase, where individuals' perceptions of and reactions to digital data are intrinsically skewed. There exist two major cognitive biases during digitization process: "digit preferences," where healthcare providers prioritize specific numbers, and "left digit bias" where continuous variables are disproportionately estimated by focusing on the leftmost digit. Although information loss and cognitive biases can cause significant distortions in healthcare, the effects of this "digitization" process have not been adequately quantified, and the accumulation of further evidence in this field is anticipated.
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Objective Early defibrillation is crucial for improving the survival rates of patients with shockable cardiac arrest (OHCA). Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are essential in basic life support (BLS), yet their usage in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests remains around 10%. There are two types of AEDs: semi-automatic (s-AED) and fully automatic (f-AED), with the latter automatically delivering a shock if indicated. ⋯ Although a subset of participants expressed hesitation in pressing the shock button on the s-AEDs, no statistically significant difference was observed between the groups. Conclusion This study suggests that preferences for AED types may vary between medical and non-medical professional groups, with some reluctance in using s-AEDs. Although no significant differences in hesitation were found between the groups, f-AEDs may reduce hesitation and potentially improve AED effectiveness during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
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Gallbladder abscess is extremely rare. Aseptic abscesses are sometimes observed in patients with active ulcerative colitis (UC) with no history of colectomy; however, it is rare for an aseptic abscess in the gallbladder to develop after surgery for UC. We treated a 56-year-old man with UC and severe pouchitis who had undergone subtotal colorectal resection. ⋯ Therefore, the patient underwent cholecystectomy for suspected gallbladder cancer. A pathological examination revealed an aseptic abscess. This clinical report describes a rare case of an aseptic abscess in the gallbladder after surgery for UC.