The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit of treating every epileptic seizure as an emergency and to propose a decision tree for use by nonmedical staff. Published literature on emergency medical treatment for seizures was reviewed. A detailed decision tree was developed for use by nonmedical staff. Its effectiveness was prospectively analysed over 16 months. Each seizure was logged, an...

For centuries, attempts have been made to choose the gender of offspring, but not until the 1970s did effective prebirth gender selection become possible through prenatal diagnosis and abortion. More recently, preimplantation techniques to determine the sex of embryos for transfer have been established (1, 2). Because these methods require either prenatal diagnosis and abortion or a costly cycl...

OBJECTIVE Examine trends in nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NPS), including motives, routes of administration, sources, cost, and risk factors. PARTICIPANTS 1,253 college students. METHODS Data were collected annually during academic years 2004-2005 through 2008-2009. Generalized estimating equations analyses evaluated longitudinal trends. Logistic regression models evaluated sta...

BACKGROUND Competency-based education has been considered the most important pedagogical trend in Medicine in the last two decades. In clinical contexts, competencies are implemented through Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) which are observable and measurable. The aim of this paper is to describe the methodology used in the design of educational tools to assess students´ competencies ...

BACKGROUND Tourniquet application is a known means for bleeding prevention in the military prehospital setting. METHODS This study was a 4-year retrospective analysis of silicone and improvised tourniquet applications by Israeli Defense Force soldiers. RESULTS Of 550 soldiers who were treated in the prehospital setting, tourniquets were applied to 91 (16%) patients and in less than 15 minut...

Public health authorities have described, with growing alarm, an unprecedented increase in morbidity and mortality associated with use of opioid pain relievers (OPRs). Efforts to address the opioid crisis have focused mainly on reducing nonmedical OPR use. Too often overlooked, however, is the need for preventing and treating opioid addiction, which occurs in both medical and nonmedical OPR use...

As of January 2016, 23 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical or nonmedical cannabis, with more likely to follow. This dynamic policy context represents a substantial challenge for policy evaluation. Part I of this article provides a summary of state-level cannabis policy components across states and federal action regarding state-level policies. Part II presents a deta...

Objective: The objective of this study was to quantify the direct medical and nonmedical costs of stroke among patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation in India. Methods: An observational, multicenter cost-of-illness study was conducted within large tertiary care hospitals across three metropolitan cities in India. Medical chart records of eligible patients who were hospitalized during the...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the impact on college students' perceptions of nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NMUPS) of motivation for use and gender. PARTICIPANTS Participants were college students (N=695) from 2 universities in different regions of the United States. METHODS Participants read a vignette describing a college student who used a prescription stimulant for a nonmedi...

BACKGROUND Nonmedical use of prescription medication is a significant and growing public health concern in the United States. Drug utilization measures that can reliably quantify the extent of nonmedical use of a given medication or medication class would greatly facilitate efforts to identify, monitor, and constrain nonmedical prescription drug use. Measures making use of prescription claims d...