Markers to measure quality and safety in health care are much debated. A decline in adverse event reporting may represent a genuine decline in adverse events or merely a decline in their reporting; just as a rise in the reporting of poor outcomes may represent significant cultural changes in a healthcare system more vigilant or […]
Month: March 2011
Life-threatening event during skin-to-skin contact in the delivery room
Case reports come into their own when they report aspects of routine clinical practice that all doctors can easily relate to. This case report describes an episode of apnoea in a newborn baby handed to his mother after delivery. The baby suffers cardiorespiratory arrest, is resuscitated and taken to the neonatal ICU. Thankfully, after recovery, […]
Media labels – Three-parent IVF
The alarmingly labelled ‘three-parent IVF’ treatment has been discussed in the media over the last week following the publication of research in Nature by researchers from Newcastle. (1) The technique they studied used abnormally fertilised embryos (1 or 3 pronuclear zygotes that are not usually used in IVF) to see if the pronuclei could be […]
Man with vCJD dies after a long and public illness
Jonathan Simms from Belfast has died of variant CJD. He had survived 10 years with the disease and his case has been widely discussed in the media. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12667709 Initially, doctors thought he had multiple sclerosis. But Jonathan’s illness was later confirmed as vCJD. He was given just months to live. After a court battle, the […]
Lung protective strategy and prone ventilation resulting in successful outcome in a patient with ARDS due to H1N1
Imagine having to watch a common cold turning into a violent pneumonia in your 3 year old child and having to see him/her go under the ventilator for nearly a month. Imagine the relief having him/her back intact after the ordeal! This case report depicts one such incident that is best described as one of […]