South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde
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Letter Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Treatment of paediatric burns with a nanocrystalline silver dressing compared with standard wound care in a burns unit: a cost analysis.
Burns are a leading cause of non-natural death in South African infants and children. Conventional care of partial-thickness burns often requires painful, time consuming and costly twice-daily dressing changes to clean the wound and apply antimicrobial topical agents. A new topical nanocrystalline silver-coated NS dressing (Acticoat; Smith & Nephew) has been developed and is the first-line treatment of choice in many burn centres. ⋯ NS dressings were changed every 3 days based on their sustained and slow release of silver ions over 72 hours. Using NS clearly saved costs compared with the three other regimens. The demonstrated cost savings resulted primarily from the decreased number of dressings, and the presumed shorter hospital stay.
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Resuscitation of patients occurs daily in emergency departments. Traditional practice entails family members remaining outside the resuscitation room. ⋯ Short-course training such as postgraduate advanced life support and other continued professional development activities should have a positive effect on this practice.The more experienced doctors are and the longer they work in emergency medicine, the more comfortable they appear to be with the concept of FWR and therefore the more likely they are to allow it. Further study and course attendance by doctors has a positive influence on the practice of FWR.
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With the ubiquitous connectivity offered by the Internet, social media sites (like Twitter and Facebook) and personal publishing platforms (blogs) are proliferating rapidly. In this new, evolving scenario of social media, these tools become an important medium to disseminate information at a lightning speed. However, the conventional medical publication model is less than eager to regard them as equivalent to traditional modes of information dissemination. In this article we examine the role played by social media as a critic of the medical publication system, and how it acts as a safeguard by building a platform for post-publication peer review.