British journal of anaesthesia
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Performance assessment is becoming increasingly necessary in the medical workplace. Hospitals and patients expect safety, and under-performance by a doctor can compromise standards. By describing and quantifying performance, positive behaviour can be encouraged and unsafe behaviour remedied. Anaesthesia Non-Technical Skills (ANTS) is a behavioural marker system that can be used to assess non-technical skills in the workplace. ⋯ Anaesthetists could not be trained to reliably use ANTS as a summative assessment tool using our 1 day programme. There was an inadequate correlation of scores between participants and experts. Two major problems contributed to the lack of agreement. Observed behaviours were often misclassified into the incorrect element and safety beliefs varied among anaesthetists. Other reasons for the failure to achieve success and potential future direction are discussed.
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The steep (40 degrees ) Trendelenburg position optimizes surgical exposure during robotic prostatectomy. The goal of the current study was to investigate the combined effect of this position and CO(2) pneumoperitoneum on cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory homeostasis during these procedures. ⋯ The combination of the prolonged steep Trendelenburg position and CO(2) pneumoperitoneum was well tolerated. Haemodynamic and pulmonary variables remained within safe limits. Regional cerebral oxygenation was well preserved and CPP remained within the limits between which cerebral blood flow is usually considered to be maintained by cerebral autoregulation.
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Critical illness leading to prolonged length of stay (LOS) in an intensive care unit (ICU) is associated with significant mortality and resource utilization. This study assessed the independent effect of ICU LOS on in-hospital and long-term mortality after hospital discharge. ⋯ LOS in ICU was not an independent risk factor for in-hospital mortality, but it had a small effect on long-term mortality after hospital discharge after adjustment for other risk factors.
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Local anaesthetics exhibit direct neurotoxic effects on neurones. Numerous studies have investigated the factors that may reverse this neuropathology, but the effects of glucose conditions on neuronal regeneration after lidocaine-induced injury have not been examined by observing living neurones. The present study investigated the effects of different glucose conditions on neurite length, growth cone regeneration, and cell death in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurones after lidocaine-induced injury in vitro. ⋯ Normal glucose is optimal for neuronal recovery after lidocaine-induced injury in vitro.