Articles: emergency-services.
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Journal of medical ethics · Jun 1993
Postmortem procedures in the emergency department: using the recently dead to practise and teach.
In generations past, it was common practice for doctors to learn lifesaving technical skills on patients who had recently died. But this practice has lately been criticised on religious, legal, and ethical grounds, and has fallen into disuse in many hospitals and emergency departments. This paper uses four questions to resolve whether doctors in emergency departments should practise and teach non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on the newly dead: Is it ethically and legally permissible to practise and teach non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on the newly dead emergency-department patient? What are the alternatives or possible consequences of not practising non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures on newly dead patients? Is consent from relatives required? Should doctors in emergency departments allow or even encourage this use of newly dead patients?
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Revista médica de Chile · Jun 1993
Comparative Study[Prevalence of mental disorders at emergency service].
Aiming to know the frequency of mental disorders among patients consulting a general hospital emergency ward, 2834 medical records of such patients were retrospectively reviewed. 8.4% of consultations were due to mental disorders. Sixty four percent of patients consulting for mental disorders were women. ⋯ A low percent of these patients were referred to psychiatry. The low frequency of psychiatric referrals and the importance of psychiatric advice in emergency rooms is discussed.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of attendance and emergency admission patterns at accident and emergency departments in and out of London.
To compare the sociodemographic characteristics, diagnoses, and mode of referral of people and emergency admissions between an accident and emergency department in inner London and one in a town outside London. ⋯ Differences in sociodemographic characteristics were more important than general practice referral patterns in determining the differences in people attending at accident and emergency departments inside and outside London. Many of these characteristics are likely to be found in other inner city populations. A strategy to improve acute care in inner London should take account of the needs of these sociodemographically different groups.
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1) To determine whether the frequencies of panic disorder (PD) and depression (DEP) in an emergency department (ED) population were comparable to those in other primary care groups; 2) to evaluate whether patients without the clinical diagnosis of acute cardiac ischemia (ACI) had higher frequencies of these disorders; and 3) to identify characteristic clinical findings in patients with PD or DEP. ⋯ This study suggests that approximately one in three patients presenting to the ED with acute pain has symptoms consistent with a psychiatric disorder. These disorders occur frequently in both those with and those without acute cardiac ischemia, and clinical variables may help identify these frequent ED utilizers.