BACKGROUND Parental and professional agreement as to the presence of wheezing in infants and preschool children has been shown to be poor. Agreement on the absence or presence of physical signs on chest examination in these populations is far from perfect, even among experienced physicians. OBJECTIVES We sought to compare the assessment of a parent, nurse, and physician with the "gold standar...

PURPOSE To determine the accuracy of patient-physician communication regarding topical ophthalmic medication use based on bottle cap color, particularly among individuals who may have acquired color vision deficiency from glaucoma. DESIGN Cross-sectional, clinical study. PARTICIPANTS Patients aged ≥18 years with primary open-angle, primary angle-closure, pseudoexfoliation, or pigment disper...

The inflammatory component of asthma is usually assessed indirectly by symptoms and spirometry, these may be inaccurate. It can now be assessed directly and reliably by the examination of sputum cell counts. There is no information on how clinical assessment of the presence and type of airway inflammation compares with actual measurements. In this single-centre observational study, sputum was c...

Although current evidence suggests that respiratory care protocols can enhance allocation of respiratory care services while conserving costs, a randomized trial is needed to address shortcomings of available studies. We therefore conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing respiratory care for adult non-ICU inpatients directed by a Respiratory Therapy Consult Service (RTCS) versus respir...