How do you deal with patients who request parenteral opioids for exacerbation of chronic pain and then want refills of their potent analgesics on discharge? If you are like me, painfully, often with frustration and hostility; this issue should therefore be of interest.
J. Stephan Stapczynski, MD, Editor
In this randomized study, patients with left-sided infective endocarditis and large vegetations who underwent valve replacement surgery within 48 hours of randomization had lower rates of embolic events and death from any cause after 6 months compared to those who underwent surgery later.
In this paper, the authors reviewed long-term survival data from a large population of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients who were discharged alive after their arrest. All patients who have a cardiac arrest in Seattle and King County, Washington, are entered into a registry organized to follow the Utstein guidelines for reporting cardiac arrest.
Chest pain presentations to the emergency department (ED) are common and very costly to the health care system. Although the event rates are low in patients with a low clinical risk profile, the price of a missed diagnosis is high.
