The aims of our study were to determine concentrations of wasted halothane in operating rooms and to investigate the effect of halothane pollution on liver functions of exposed personnel. The studied group included operating room personnel from the clinic of surgery, Novi Sad University Clinical Center. Surgeons were exposed to an average concentration of 29.41 mg/m, anesthesiologists to 34.60 ...

A real time, distance lab module is being developed and implemented in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This internet based system allows remote personnel to watch the experiments, acquire data, and interact with on-site personnel. The e-lab broadcasts not only the live scenes of laboratory and experiments, but als...

Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) regulations, laboratory testing is categorized as waived (from routine regulatory oversight) or nonwaived based on the complexity of the tests; tests of moderate and high complexity are nonwaived tests. Laboratories that perform molecular genetic testing are subject to the general CLIA quality systems requirements for nonwaived...

Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) is a complex and ever-prevalent problem presenting to emergency departments. Emergency personnel should consider DFSA in patients who are amnestic to the specific details of the event following a reported sexual assault. The presence of ethanol or a positive routine drug screen in a sexual assault victim does not exclude the potential of a surreptitious dr...

India is a population intensive developing country and there are significant shortage of healthcare facilities and resources [1]. For best utilization of social services, the healthcare units should remain open 24 hours a day, all the days in a year. This means that the personnel working in healthcare units must work in shifts and work on weekends and holidays. Working in healthcare units, plac...

CONTEXT In 1995, California adopted a bill that brought laboratory laws in line with the 1988 Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments' standards for clinical laboratories and mandated a study comparing results in physicians' office laboratories (POLs) with other settings. OBJECTIVE To determine whether persons conducting tests in POLs produce accurate and reliable test results comparable t...

Many hospital-based clinical microbiology laboratories were called upon by local first responders (law enforcement, hazardous-material teams, and emergency medicine service personnel) to perform testing on powdery and miscellaneous environmental substances during the anthrax outbreak of September and October 2001. The post-September 11 anthrax outbreak was the first definitive challenge to the ...

A laboratory worker developed clinical signs of infection with Mayaro virus (Togaviridae), an arbovirus of South and Central America, 6 days after preparation of Mayaro viral antigen and 10 days after a trip to a rain forest. There was no evidence of skin lesions during the antigen preparation, and level 3 containment safety measures were followed. Therefore, molecular characterization of the v...

To effectively characterize newly recognized viruses (Marburg, Lassa, etc.) and to study other highly virulent infections for which no effective prophylaxis or therapy exists, special containment facilities must be utilized and conventional techniques modified to minimize risk to laboratory personnel. This paper describes a laboratory suite for such studies, contained within a larger research f...