BACKGROUND Following the 2002 enactment of the Belgian law on euthanasia, which requires the consultation of an independent second physician before proceeding with euthanasia, the Life End Information Forum (LEIF) was founded which provides specifically trained physicians who can act as mandatory consultants in euthanasia requests. This study assesses quality of consultations in Flanders and Br...

OBJECTIVE To follow up Japanese patients with type 1 diabetes for a maximum of 40 years to examine when they transitioned from pediatric care to adult care and to explore whether the attending physician, i.e., pediatrician or internist, was associated with prognosis. METHODS Participants consisted of 1,299 patients who had been diagnosed as having type 1 diabetes at less than 15 years old bet...

BACKGROUND Prior studies suggest that high workload among attending physicians may be associated with reduced teaching effectiveness and poor patient outcomes, but these relationships have not been investigated using objective measures of workload and safety. OBJECTIVE To examine associations between attending workload, teaching effectiveness, and patient safety, hypothesizing that higher wor...

In foot and ankle patients, the use of Kirschner wires is common, and the population in the typical foot and ankle practice has higher rates of comorbidities associated with infection. This study assessed national trends regarding the use of postoperative prophylactic antibiotic therapy in patients undergoing foot and ankle surgery treated with percutaneous Kirschner wires. Attending physicians...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate health professionals working at a tertiary pediatric hospital in terms of their knowledge regarding the practical use of metered-dose inhalers. METHODS Practical and written tests on the use of metered-dose inhalers were applied to physicians, physical therapists, nurses and nursing assistants. A score from 0 to 10 was assigned to each evaluation, and median scores were ...

BACKGROUND Pain is among the most commonly treated symptoms in the emergency department, and opioids are commonly prescribed from the emergency department to treat moderate to severe pain. Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) can be used to assist physicians identify individuals at increased risk to misuse or abuse opioids. While the use of the PDMP has been shown useful among clinician...

PURPOSE Although physical examination is a fundamental component of medical decision making, relatively few studies have evaluated how physicians quantify clinical signs and whether different methods of assessment have different effects on clinical practice. OBJECTIVES To evaluate a possible impact of clinical experience when attending physicians, medical residents and medical students quanti...

BACKGROUND Physicians are frequently unaware of their patients' desires regarding end-of-life care. Consequently, opportunities to implement do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders are often missed. OBJECTIVE To determine the reasons attending physicians do not write DNR orders when patients face increased mortality. METHODS Over 4 months, the medical records of all inpatients on the General Medici...

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to identify the proportion of dehydration-related ambulatory care-sensitive condition hospitalizations, the reasons why these hospitalizations were preventable, and factors associated with preventability. METHODS A cross-sectional survey of primary care providers (PCPs), inpatient attending physicians, and parents was conducted in a consecutive series of c...

BACKGROUND A caring, compassionate practitioner of the medical arts is the idealized version of what makes a good doctor. If asked to think of a painting of a doctor we most likely conjure an image of a physician sitting at a patient's bedside checking the pulse with a concerned look on his face. The reality is however that cynicism, among other negative attitudes, is becoming more prominent am...