Conflict of interest: Have we learned anything?

What Have We Learned?

FIVE YEARS AFTER THE INSTITUTE of Medicine (IOM) reported that as many as 98 000 people die annually as the result of medical errors and called for a national effort to make health care safe, it is time to assess our progress. Is health care safer now? And, if not, why not? The IOM’s report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, galvanized a dramatically expanded level of conversatio...

Pathophysiology of Ischemia/Reperfusion-induced Myocardial Injury: What We Have Learned From Preconditioning and Postconditioning?

Organ damage after reperfusion of previously viable ischemic tissues is defined as ischemia/reperfusion injury. The pathophysiology of ischemia/reperfusion injury involves cellular effect of ischemia, reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cascade. Protection against ischemia/reperfusion injury may be achieved by preconditioning or postconditioning. In this review, we discuss basic mechan...

Vertical interventions and system effects; have we learned anything from past experiences?

The recent Ebola Virus Outbreak had a devastating effect on West Africa's already feeble national health systems. We suggest that such an impact turned out to be catastrophic because it hit particularly hard human resources for health and the delivery of primary healthcare services, which are cross-sectional to any health system. National and international interventions failed to understand the...

GOAL: What Have We Learned?

A recent study entitled “Can Guideline-Defined Asthma Control Be Achieved?”1 stands out as one of the most noteworthy clinical studies of the past year because of the important concepts it confirms and because of the many significant questions it raises. Published online in July 2004 and in print in October of the same year, it is referred to by most as the GOAL trial (from the now familiar acr...

What we mean when we talk about "conflict of interest".