The Journal of surgical research
-
The need for leadership training has become recognized as being highly important to improving medical care, and should be included in surgical resident education curriculums. ⋯ Areas of resident leadership strengths and weaknesses were identified. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was demonstrated to be a valuable tool for identifying specific areas where leadership training would be most beneficial in the educational curriculum. The future use of this instrument could prove valuable to surgical education training programs.
-
To evaluate the scientific impact of women in the surgical literature. ⋯ Although women comprise a small proportion of principal investigators on abstracts presented at these conferences, the quality of their presented work is equal to or better than those of their male counterparts.
-
Comparative Study
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for cardiopulmonary failure in pediatric patients: is a second course justified?
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is accepted therapy for cardiorespiratory failure. Even after a successful ECMO course, patient deterioration may occur and a second course of ECMO may be contemplated. Although data regarding second ECMO courses exist in neonates, there are no reports describing second ECMO courses in pediatric patients. We hypothesized that data from a national ECMO registry would be useful in identifying which pediatric patients would be optimal candidates for a second course of ECMO. ⋯ ECMO therapy achieves 49% survival in children 1-18 years of age. When a second ECMO course becomes necessary, survival rates comparable to the first ECMO course are possible. Patients developing renal complications during their first ECMO course have worse outcome with a second ECMO course. Patients are at greater risk for complications during a second ECMO course if they experience a high number of first-run complications, are >3 years old, or undergo a prolonged second ECMO course. These data are useful when deciding whether to offer a second ECMO course to an eligible pediatric patient.