Surgery
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Traumatic atlanto-occipital dissociation is considered highly unstable and was once believed to be uniformly fatal. With recent advances in prehospital care, coupled with early diagnosis and stabilization, these injuries are potentially survivable. The aim of this study was to identify potentially modifiable risk factors associated with improved outcomes after a traumatic atlanto-occipital dissociation. ⋯ Traumatic atlanto-occipital dissociation remains a rare injury following blunt trauma. Clinical presentation is a predictor of mortality. Prompt diagnosis is crucial in promoting rapid stabilization and improving survivability. Survival to hospital discharge portends improved functional outcome.
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Optimizing intraoperative education is critical for development of autonomous residents. Faculty decisions concerning intraoperative entrustment determine the degree to which a resident gains intraoperative responsibility. Accordingly, residents exhibit entrustable behaviors that further faculty entrustment in the operating room. Little empiric evidence exists evaluating how the sex of a resident influences faculty-resident decisions of entrustment. Studies involving perception-based measurements of autonomy report inequities for women residents. We sought to assess faculty behaviors in entrustment in relation to resident sex using OpTrust, a third-party objective measurement tool. ⋯ Using OpTrust scores, we found that a resident's sex does not appear to influence faculty entrustment in the OR. Faculty entrustment scores for women and men residents are similar across cases. This observation suggests that during the intraoperative interaction, faculty are not extending entrustment or opportunities for autonomy differently to women or men. Future research is needed to identify and measure perioperative elements that inform resident autonomy, which may contribute to inequities for women residents.
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In the international associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy registry, more than 50% of patients underwent associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy with a right hepatectomy. This study evaluated the necessity of two-stage hepatectomies being performed as right hepatectomy associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy in patients with colorectal liver metastases versus right trisectionectomy associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy. ⋯ More than 15% of associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy procedures were performed in patients who may have had no indication for a two-stage hepatectomy, especially in the group of patients with right hepatectomy. Thus, it appears that there is a risk of the overuse of associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy because of its great potential to induce volume growth. Due to the high perioperative risk of associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy, indications should be carefully reconsidered.
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Five billion people lack access to safe, affordable, and timely surgical care; this is in part driven by severe shortages in the global surgical workforce. Task shifting is commonly implemented to expand the surgical workforce. A more complete understanding of the global distribution and use of surgical, obstetric, and anesthetic task shifting is lacking in the literature. We aimed to document the use of task shifting worldwide with a systematic review of the literature. ⋯ Task shifting is used to augment the global surgical, obstetric, and anesthetic workforce across all geographic regions and income groups. Associate clinicians are ubiquitous among the global surgical workforce and should be considered in plans to scale up the surgical workforce. Further research is required to assess outcomes, especially in low-income and middle-income countries where documented supervision is less robust.
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As early as the 1990s, chronic critical illness, a distinct syndrome of persistent high-acuity illness requiring management in the ICU, was reported under a variety of descriptive terms including the "neuropathy of critical illness," "myopathy of critical illness," "ICU-acquired weakness," and most recently "post-intensive care unit syndrome." The widespread implementation of targeted shock resuscitation, improved organ support modalities, and evidence-based protocolized ICU care has resulted in significantly decreased in-hospital mortality within surgical ICUs, specifically by reducing early multiple organ failure deaths. However, a new phenotype of multiple organ failure has now emerged with persistent but manageable organ dysfunction, high resource utilization, and discharge to prolonged care facilities. ⋯ Although the underlying pathophysiology driving chronic critical illness remains incompletely described, the persistent inflammation, immunosuppression, and catabolism syndrome has been proposed as a mechanistic framework in which to explain the increased incidence of chronic critical illness in surgical ICUs. The purpose of this review is to provide a historic perspective of the epidemiologic evolution of multiple organ failure into persistent inflammation, immunosuppression, and catabolism syndrome; describe the mechanism that drives and sustains chronic critical illness, and review the long-term outcomes of surgical patients who develop chronic critical illness.