Transanal TME – really needed?

Is this journal really needed?

D uring the second world war, propaganda posters carried a message that asked, ''Is this trip really necessary?'' Their purpose was to persuade people to conserve gasoline. Prompted by the decision to limit free online access to subscribers, some board members and I examined the role this journal plays in fostering injury prevention internationally. We asked, in effect, if this journal was real...

Studying Biodiversity: Is a New Paradigm Really Needed?

Authors in this journal have recommended a new approach to the conduct of biodiversity science. This data-driven approach requires the organization of large amounts of ecological data, analysis of these data to discover complex patterns, and subsequent development of hypotheses corresponding to detected patterns. This proposed new approach has been contrasted with more-traditional knowledge-bas...

Management of heart failure: are specialists really needed?

Heart failure (HF) is regarded as one of the major medical challenges of our time given the increasing prevalence and impaired quality of life, high morbidity, mortality, and socio-economic burden. As a consequence, disease management programmes for patients with HF have been implemented in many countries. The goal of these programmes is to optimize care and to deal with the complexity of the m...

All I really needed to know I learned during gastrulation.

Are New Devices for Percutaneous Dilatational Tracheostomy Really Needed? Yes.

To the Editor: We read with interest the comments and suggestions of Dr Sangwan; however, a number of the issues he raised need to be clarified. A fiberoptic bronchoscope is commonly used during percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy (PDT) throughout Europe.1 Recent surveys performed in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom report that a fiberoptic bronchoscope is used to guide PDT in 90% of n...