A successful liver transplant program needs cooperation and communication from the surgical, blood banking, pathology, primary care, and anesthesia services. Rapid availability of laboratory data, efficient blood banking services, ability to infuse blood products rapidly, coagulation management capability, and plentiful manpower are essential.

The environmental impact assessment process is over 40 years old and has dramatically expanded. Topics, such as social, health and human rights impact are now included. The main body of an impact analysis is generally hundreds of pages long and supported by countless technical appendices. For large, oil/gas, mining and water resources projects both the volume and technical sophistication of the...

Canada is not alone in having to face up to significant human resource (HR) challenges as it debates how healthcare should be managed and delivered in the 21st century. The United Kingdom is having to deal with many similar issues related to demographic change, skills shortages and the drive to "modernize" public services. This commentary highlights some of the main dimensions of HR-related cha...

OBJECTIVE A major objective of national and state health policy has been to increase primary care physician supply in rural areas. It is not known whether this objective has been met for general pediatricians. This study examines trends in the rural-urban distribution of general pediatricians in the United States from 1981 to 1996. DESIGN Descriptive serial cross-sectional study. PARTICIPAN...

On April 16, 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) announced that the number of organ donors increased 5.6 percent in 1998, the first substantial increase since 1995. Donation increases between 1997 and 1998 were substantial for whites (up 6.6 percent from 4,139 to 4,410 donors) and Hispanics (up 7.8 percent from 552 to 595 donors). Ho...

The choice of a specialty by medical students is a complex one that has significant implications for the future supply of physician manpower. The study by Weissman et al. portrays this choice as reflecting the degree of congruence between a student's needs and values and his or her perception of the characteristics of the various specialties. The existing shortages in the supply of various spec...