a decade ago, sub-saharan africa accounted for 24% of the global disease burden but was served by only 4% of the global health workforce. the chronic shortage of medical doctors has led other health professionals especially nurses to perform the role of healthcare providers. these health workers have been variously named clinical officers, health officers, physician assistants, nurse practition...

Physician assistants (PAs) have been used for decades in the Canadian military. Now, PAs are being introduced in various clinical settings to provide patient care for the general population. This article reviews major developments in the PA profession across Canada over the last decade. Nearly 541 PAs are employed in Canada or work for a Canadian agency. Growing evidence demonstrates the positi...

introduction: it is recommended that the physician apply at least a semi-quantitative segmental scoring system in myocardial perfusion spect.  we aimed to assess the agreement between automated semi-quantitative analysis using qps (quantitative perfusion spect) software and visual approach for calculation of summed stress  score (sss), summed rest score (srs) and summed difference score (sds). ...

background scaphoid fractures are the most common type of carpal fractures. objectives the aim of the study was to compare the diagnostic value of panoramic and conventional radiographs of the wrist in scaphoid fractures. patients and methods the panoramic and conventional radiographs of 122 patients with acute and chronic wrist trauma were studied. the radiographs were analyzed and examined by...

We discuss the challenges of implementing clinical practice guidelines for depression in the primary care setting. Multiple potential barriers can limit physician guideline adherence and translation of research into improved patient outcomes. Six primary barriers relate to providers (lack of awareness, lack of familiarity, lack of agreement, lack of self efficacy, lack of outcome expectancy, an...

There has been a recent effort to treat high-risk ventricular tachycardia (VT) patients through radio-ablation. However, manual segmentation of the VT target is complex and time-consuming. This work introduces ASSET, or Auto-segmentation Seventeen SEgments for Tachycardia ablation, aid in radiation therapy (RT) planning. ASSET was retrospectively applied CTs 26 thoracic RT (13 undergoing ablati...

Most scarcities that underpin health disparities within and among countries are not natural; rather, they result from policy choices and the operation of social institutions. Using examples from the United States of America: the Chicago heat wave and hurricane Katrina, this paper develops "denaturalizing scarcity" as a strategy for enquiry to inform public-health ethics in an interconnected wor...

BACKGROUND Patient-based symptom scores are the standard method for assessment in palliative care. There has been limited research on the frequency of errors upon using this approach. The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) is a reliable and valid assessment tool routinely used for symptom intensity assessment in our cancer center. OBJECTIVE To determine if patients were scoring the symp...

BACKGROUND Cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates in Bolivia are among the highest in Latin America. This investigation aims to evaluate the possibility of using simple devices, e.g. a cotton swab and a glass slide, for self-sampling in order to detect human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA by PCR in cervico-vaginal cells. METHODS In the first phase of our study we evaluated the use of a glass...

OBJECTIVE Patients can potentially monitor disease activity of RA through self-assessed swollen joints (clinical synovitis), but reliability is poor. The objective is to evaluate the use of education by US feedback on the ability of patients to assess for clinical synovitis in RA. METHODS We performed a 6 month, single-centre, randomized controlled trial on patients with established RA to stu...