Resp Care
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The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen the advancement of combat medicine. The nature of the conflicts, with troops located in remote areas and faced with explosive ordinance designed to focus massive injuries on dismounted personnel, have forced military medical personnel to adapt accordingly. There has been a rekindling of interest in the use of tourniquets to stop exsanguination from extremity wounds, as well as in the transfusion of fresh whole blood from walking blood banks. ⋯ The field of combat medicine has taken several concepts initially designed in civilian settings, such as temporary abdominal packing and vascular shunting, and adapted them to the military setting to provide state of the art trauma management to our troops in combat. In turn, developments in the resuscitation of the trauma patient, using increased blood and plasma products and less crystalloid, have been pioneered in conflict and transitioned to the civilian sector. Advancements made during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as those still being developed, will shape the care of the injured patient, in both civilian and military settings, for the foreseeable future.
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Review Case Reports
Severe acute respiratory failure secondary to acute fibrinous and organizing pneumonia requiring mechanical ventilation: a case report and literature review.
A 27-year-old woman was admitted to our ICU with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure and criteria for ARDS. Despite an F(IO(2)) of 1.0 and a lung protective strategy, the patient died on day 15 without any improvement. The relatives gave consent for post-mortem analysis. ⋯ There is little information regarding the pathophysiology of this illness. Important questions remain regarding this disease, including predisposing factors and management. Patients who require mechanical ventilation have poor outcomes.
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Evidence-based medicine has assumed a major place in establishing the standard of care for many diseases. Yet practices based largely on clinical experience have often been difficult to change, even when clearly associated with patient harm. In this paper, based on the 27th Philip Kittredge Memorial Lecture, we highlight respiratory care practices that have clearly failed the tests of time and evidence yet sometimes tenaciously persist. We also discuss the appropriate use and potential abuse of evidence-based medicine.