South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde
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Selection of medical students at South African (SA) medical schools must promote equitable and fair access to students from all population groups, while ensuring optimal student throughput and success, and training future healthcare practitioners who will fulfil the needs of the local society. In keeping with international practices, a variety of academic and non-academic measures are used to select applicants for medical training programmes in SA medical schools. ⋯ Selection policies for undergraduate medical programmes aimed at redress should be continued and further refined, along with the provision of support to ensure student success.
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Anaemia is a major global health problem affecting an estimated 42% of pregnant women worldwide. There is a paucity of South African (SA) data on anaemia in pregnancy, despite the fact that parasitic infections are endemic and the nutritional status of sections of the population is poor. ⋯ The prevalence of anaemia was 42.7%. In the majority (81.4%) the anaemia was mild and normocytic and normochromic (68.9%). Anaemia is a common problem among antenatal attendees in an SA urban population.
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Experiences of healthcare workers responding to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa vary with the types of facility. Patients suspected of having Ebola virus disease (EVD) must be isolated from each other as well as from the wider community until testing is complete; in Sierra Leone such facilities were called Ebola holding units (EHUs). Once EVD was confirmed, patients were moved to Ebola treatment units (ETUs), where they could be cohorted together safely and treatment efforts focused on EVD itself. While a number of purpose-built units combined an EHU with an ETU, my personal experience was of working in a number of stand-alone EHUs in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
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The experience of all those who have worked with Ebola during the current outbreak has been different, and varied by time and place. I worked with Médicins sans Frontières in Monrovia during October/November 2014. This was the first-ever outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the overcrowded and impoverished areas of a capital city; Ebola was spreading rapidly, and case management had to be upscaled on an unprecedented basis. It was also a time of many questions: for clinicians, these centred on how to optimise survival, and how to maximise care in a resource-limited environment.