Penetrating thoracic injury by a foreign body is a potential cause of high morbidity and mortality. We report a 10-years-old male having impalement injury on the right inferior thoracic region with a metallic rod. Patient was successfully managed in the emergency ward without any surgical intervention.

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE Many children with acute lower respiratory tract infections (ALRI) present to the emergency ward with concurrent wheezing. A chest x-ray is often requested to rule out pneumonia. We assessed inter-observer agreement in interpreting x-rays on such children. DESIGNS AND SETTING: Prospective consecutive case study at Instituto de Salud del Niño, Lima, Peru. METHODS Chest x-...

BACKGROUND Activities of daily living (ADL) are an important indicator of health and independence in elderly. It provides useful information for proper planning in the field of elderly care. Trauma in elderly population is frequent and can negatively affect the independence in ADL. OBJECTIVES The purpose of the present study was to evaluate elderly independence in activities of daily living (...

AIM The aim was to assess junior doctors' understanding of their role in the Major Incident Contingency Plan at their hospital, and to evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching intervention on increasing awareness. BACKGROUND In this audit, 'junior doctor' refers to the first 2 years of work after qualifying from medical school. Once a major incident is confirmed, junior doctors should go to t...

BACKGROUND Before primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), it is not clear whether a routine early administration of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors in the emergency ward is beneficial or their administration in selected cases in the catheterization laboratory. OBJECTIVES The present randomized clinical trial sought to inve...

A total of 37,152 patients attended the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) from 1st January to 31st December 1998. Attendance during early hours (midnight to 0659 hrs.) constituted only 10.4% (3853 cases) whereas that for three other time periods of 0700-1159 hrs., 1200-1759 hrs., and 1800-2359 hrs. was 29.4% (10,927 cases), 30.8% (11,448 cas...

INTRODUCTION Duodenal perforation is one of the common pathologies in patients presenting in emergency with acute abdominal pain in an emergency ward and requires prompt surgery as life saving and curative intervention. The present study was conducted to determine whether the minimal access approach by laparoscopy was equally feasible as the open method. AIM To compare laparoscopic vs. open m...

Massive pulmonary embolism is unusual in young people. We present a case of massive pulmonary embolism in a teenage Chinese patient. Initially he presented to the emergency department with dyspnoea and fever. Influenza B was diagnosed during his four-day stay in the paediatric ward. One week later he suddenly collapsed and presented to the emergency department with chest pain, syncope and dyspn...

OBJECTIVE To determine the presentation and treatment offered to sexually assaulted females attending emergency gynaecological ward in Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. SETTING Mulago hospital gynaecological emergency ward. STUDY DESIGN Prospective descriptive study. PARTICIPANTS Fifty eight sexually assaulted females were recruited from 1 st March 2000 to 31 st December 2000. They were i...