OBJECTIVE To explore the possible causes for delay in diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH). STUDY DESIGN This is a prospective study of time interval between onset of symptom, first medical consultation, first specialist clinic consultation, diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer in otorhinolaryngology head and neck (ORL-HNS) and dental cl...

OBJECTIVE To identify elements of data that have been shown to contribute to continuity of information between primary care providers and medical specialists providing care to adult asthma patients. DESIGN Systematic review of the literature followed by a 2-round modified Delphi consensus process. SETTING Province of Ontario. PARTICIPANTS Eight expert panelists, including 3 practising fam...

BACKGROUND Searching medical records of study non-responders to investigate selection bias is no longer acceptable. We explore an alternative by comparing consultation rates in survey responders who consented to medical record review, with anonymized consultation rates for the total practice populations. METHODS Anonymized aggregated consultation rates for the year following a population-base...

BACKGROUND Staff development initiatives proposed over the past few decades have, for the most part, suggested training environments such as workshops, short courses and seminar series. However, for many healthcare professionals, lecturing constitutes an ancillary activity, and a full-time occupation in the healthcare industry makes participation in such time-consuming programmes difficult to e...

BACKGROUND In this study, we wanted to investigate the relationship between background variables, communication skills, and the bio-psychosocial content of a medical consultation in a general practice setting with a standardized patient. METHODS Final-year medical school students (N = 111) carried out a consultation with an actor playing the role of a patient with a specific somatic complaint...

OBJECTIVES Remote medical services have been expanding globally, and this is expansion is steadily increasing. It has had many positive effects, including medical access convenience, timeliness of service, and cost reduction. The speed of research and development in remote medical technology has been gradually accelerating. Therefore, it is expected to expand to enable various high-tech informa...

TeleCardio-FBC is a telemedicine system developed to enable cardiologists at the Unit of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery (UCCV/FBC) to cooperate with other physicians. The system will provide specialized medical care in cardiology for patients who live far from metropolitan areas, reducing costs and enabling better follow-up of discharged patients. The system was designed considering desk...

BACKGROUND Although teleconsultations have been used for many years in Australia, there has been a recent increase following new government incentives. There is a paucity of literature on enabling medical students to acquire the relevant skills. With a focus on equipping students for practice in rural and remote areas, our medical school has developed an innovative clinical skills lesson to pre...

BACKGROUND Patients with an advanced incurable disease are often hospitalised for some time during the last phase of life. Care in hospitals is generally focussed at curing disease and prolonging life and may therefore not in all cases adequately address the needs of such patients. We present the COMPASS study, a study on the effects and costs of consultation teams for palliative care in hospit...