The practice of allowing family to be present during patient resuscitation or invasive procedures (Family Presence) is gaining acceptance in North America and the United Kingdom in controlled circumstances. Research into Family Presence has demonstrated multiple benefits for the patient, family and health care team. These advantages include helping the family to understand the severity of the i...

OBJECTIVE To assess quality of informed consent among patients undergoing procedures and patient's preferences about decision-making. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey of hospitalized patients about informed consent before surgery or other procedures. Preference for decision-making was elicited in hospitalized and ambulatory patients. SETTING Large academic general hospital and 10 general clini...

Age is a significant factor in modifying specific needs when it comes to medical aesthetic procedures. In this review we will focus on young adults in their third decade of life and review minimally invasive aesthetic procedures other than cosmetics and cosmeceuticals. Correction of asymmetries, correction after body modifying procedures, and facial sculpturing are important issues for young ad...

Techniques and instrumentation for minimally invasive surgical procedures originated in gynecologic surgery, but the benefits of surgery with small incisions or no incisions at all have prompted the expansion of these techniques into numerous specialties. Technologies such as robotic assistance, single-incision laparoscopic surgery, natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery, and video-ass...

Bottom Line Bridging anticoagulation worsens outcomes for patients with atrial fibrillation who undergo an elective invasive procedure, resulting in more episodes of major bleeding and no difference in the rate of stroke or venous thromboembolism. Most of the patients in the study had a CHADS2 score of 1 (23%), 2 (40%), 3 (24%), or 4 (10%). The patients were largely undergoing minor surgical pr...

BACKGROUND Very preterm infants (born 24-32 weeks' gestation) undergo numerous invasive procedures during neonatal care. Repeated skin-breaking procedures in rodents cause neuronal cell death, and in human preterm neonates higher numbers of invasive procedures from birth to term-equivalent age are associated with abnormal brain development, even after controlling for other clinical risk factors...

The incidence of valvular heart disease is expected to increase over the next several decades as a large proportion of the US demographic advances into the later decades of life. At the same time, the next several years can be anticipated to bring a broad transition of surgical therapy to minimally invasive (minithoracotomy and small port) access and the more gradual introduction of percutaneou...

Degenerative disease of the lumbar spine is a common and increasingly prevalent condition that is often implicated as the primary reason for chronic low back pain and the leading cause of disability in the western world. Surgical management of lumbar degenerative disease has historically been approached by way of open surgical procedures aimed at decompressing and/or stabilizing the lumbar spin...

BACKGROUND Laparoscopic suturing and tying constitute advanced minimally invasive surgery skills. Developing proficiency in the standard methods with needle drivers is often an arduous process. Recent advances in laparoscopic instrumentations has allowed for easier methods of suturing and tying. This study investigated the hypothesis that the use of a specialized suturing device and a specializ...

Recent technological progress offers the opportunity to significantly transform conventional open surgical procedures in ways that allow minimally invasive surgery (MIS) to be accomplished by specific operative instruments' entry into the body through key-sized holes rather than large incisions. Although MIS offers an opportunity for less trauma and quicker recovery, thereby reducing length of ...