The New Zealand medical journal
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The aim of this study was to examine the involvement of adventure tourism and adventure sports activity in injury claims made to the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). ⋯ These findings suggest the need to investigate whether regulatory intervention in the form of codes of practice for high injury count activities such as horse riding and mountain biking may be necessary. Health promotion messages and education programs should focus on these and other high-injury risk areas. Improved risk management practices are required for commercial adventure tourism and adventure sports operators in New Zealand if safety is to be improved across this sector.
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To characterise doctors' responses to complaints. ⋯ The complaints process in New Zealand has the potential to improve healthcare delivery at a systemic level and to reinforce appropriate standards of professional behaviour, but it may cause individual doctors to practice defensively. Unless an appropriate educational process is allied to the complaints process, defensive medicine may compromise patient care and constrain potential improvements in healthcare delivery overall.
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During overwhelming demand for resources, such as during an influenza pandemic, clinicians may be required to deny some patients access to a resource (for example ventilation, or hospital admission). However, no pragmatic guidance exists to help clinicians do this. This paper presents criteria for the prioritisation of access to resources during overwhelming demand. The criteria are in the form of eight questions related to the resource and the patients competing for it and are intended to be sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently succinct to be useful to clinicians who might be required to make such decisions.
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Research looking at the effect of complaints on senior medical staff has shown that while there is important information to be gained from patient criticisms of medical care, they are often not well received by doctors. There is no information on the effects of complaints on junior medical staff and those undergoing vocational training in New Zealand. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of complaints on trainees in general surgery. ⋯ Trainees receiving complaints find them difficult to deal with; they incur an emotional cost on the doctor and possible future doctor patient relationships. Thus it is important that trainee doctors receive support and guidance throughout this difficult and stressful event.