BACKGROUND Between 0.1 and 0.9% of women develop complications of pregnancy that require admission to an intensive care unit (ICU). The purpose of this study was to review all obstetric patients admitted to the ICU over an 8-year period to determine the causes and outcomes of these admissions and the frequency and causes of maternal mortality. METHODS This retrospective study was based on all...

BACKGROUND There has been little study of the role of the essay question in selection for medical school. The purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of how applicants approached the essay questions used in selection at our medical school in 2007. METHODS The authors conducted a qualitative analysis of 210 essays written as part of the medical school admissions process, and...

BACKGROUND The UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) and its four subtests are currently used by 24 Medical and Dental Schools in the UK for admissions. This longitudinal study examines the predictive validity of UKCAT for final performance in the undergraduate medical degree programme at one Medical School and compares this with the predictive validity of the selection measures available pre-UKCAT...

OBJECTIVE This study examined demographic and clinical characteristics of frequent users of a psychiatric inpatient unit in Portugal. METHODS Data (2004-2008) for 1,348 consecutive psychiatric inpatients were reviewed. Frequent users (N=137), who had at least three admissions in the study period, were compared with nonfrequent users (N=1,211) on age, gender, race-ethnicity, diagnosis, and com...

The profile of admissions staying less than 24 hours admitted to the paediatric wards of University Malaya Medical Center, Kuala Lumpur, over a period of six weeks was reviewed to ascertain the need of a short-stay ward. Ninety-three (22%) of the 428 admissions admitted during the study period were discharged within 24 hours, 56 (60%) were discharged within 12 hours. Major categories of admissi...

The prevalence of children with medical complexity (CMC) has increased in recent decades. This increase is attributable, in part, to advances in medical care that improved survival of children with chronic, congenital, or critical illnesses. These children account for a disproportionate amount of inpatient utilization. Among 6.9 million pediatric discharges in 2006, just 10.1% of pediatric admi...

A study of the 'appropriateness' of 267 consecutive emergency admissions to a district paediatric department showed that admission was at a peak in the evening and night time. Breathing difficulty, head injury, and fever were the commonest presenting problems. Sixty three per cent of admissions occurred between 6 pm and 8 am and these were more likely to be after self referral to the accident a...

We read the article by SUISSA et al. [1] with great interest. The authors retrospectively looked at all hospitalisations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbation or pneumonia during the period 1990–2007 from the healthcare databases of Quebec, Canada, and found higher mortality for weekend, but not Friday, admissions, relative to Monday–Thursday admissions. Similar weekend ...

BACKGROUND Patients with diabetes have increased frequency of hospital admissions and longer lengths of stay compared to patients without diabetes. Our specialist diabetes inpatient service was reconfigured to deliver a proactive diabetes outreach service to improve the overall care of this population. AIMS To ascertain the effect of a structured diabetes outreach service to acutely admitted ...