Enfant terrible of psychiatry and widely known as one of its most indefatigable as well as iconoclastic critics, Thomas Szasz (1961-2012) had a prolific writing career that extended some 51 years beyond the publication of his first book, The Myth of Mental Illness, in 1961. This editorial identifies and critically discusses three major themes in Szasz's writings: his contention that there is no...

Severe overfeeding of critically ill patients results in increased complications without clinical benefits. However, the optimal timing and amount of nutrition to feed critically ill adults has not been established. There are multiple prediction equations for estimating calorie expenditure of critically ill patients, but most studies comparing the accuracy of different prediction equations are ...

Management of the critically ill pregnant woman is complicated by potential adverse effects of both maternal illness and ICU interventions on the fetus. This paper reviews the potential risks to the fetus of maternal critical illness, including shock, hypoxemia, and fever, as well as the effects of critical care management, such as drug therapy and radiological investigations. The authors' reco...

BACKGROUND Critically ill patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) are thought to gain an added survival benefit from management by critical care physicians, but evidence of this benefit is scant. OBJECTIVE To examine the association between hospital mortality in critically ill patients and management by critical care physicians. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of a large, prospective...

conclusions according to the presented case and subsequent literature review on fatal ebv hepatitis, clinicians should consider ebv infection in the differential diagnosis when hepatitis occurs in critically ill patients during the anti-tb therapy. although hepatitis caused by ebv is mostly self-limited, some might be fetal. introduction although hepatitis is frequently observed during antitube...

Iatrogenic illnesses are those that arise as a result of the process of medical care and are potentially preventable by improvements to patient care. The term is commonly used to denote medical error; however, for the critically ill patient the term has a much more fundamental meaning. Critical illness is inherently iatrogenic: it only develops in those patients who have been resuscitated from ...

BACKGROUND Oxidative stress is known to play a role in critical illness due to an imbalance in reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species, and the body's ability to detoxify pro-oxidants using small molecule anti-oxidants and anti-oxidant enzymes. OBJECTIVE To compare the concentrations of plasma redox metabolites and redox potentials for the Cys/CySS and GSH/GSSG thiol/disulfide p...