OBJECTIVE To study the determinants of success of coronary angioplasty in patients with chronic total occlusions, and to formulate a multiple logistic regression model to improve selection of patients. DESIGN A retrospective analysis of clinical and angiographic data on a consecutive series of patients. PATIENTS 312 patients (mean age 55, range 31 to 79 years, 86% men) who underwent coronar...

My aim in this paper is to reassess the conceptual–procedural distinction in the light of the last twenty years of research, and to consider some possible revisions or extensions. Section 1 is a brief introduction. In section 2, I outline the rationale for drawing a conceptual– procedural distinction of the type proposed in relevance theory (Blakemore 1987, 2002; Wilson and Sperber 1993). In se...

INTRODUCTION This study investigated procedural errors made during root canal preparation using stainless steel and nickel-titanium (NiTi) instruments by undergraduate students, using two diagnostic imaging methods. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty human molars were divided into three groups (n=20; group 1: K-Flexofile, group 2: K3, and group 3: BioRace). The root canals were filled with gutta-per...

OBJECTIVES To observe procedural sedation practice within a district general hospital emergency department (ED) that uses propofol for procedural sedation. METHODS Prospective observation of procedural sedation over an 11 month period. Patients over 16 years of age requiring procedural sedation and able to give informed consent were recruited. The choice of sedation agent was at the discretio...

BACKGROUND Simulation is increasingly used for teaching medical procedures. The goal of this study was to assess learner preferences for how simulators should be used in a procedural curriculum. METHODS A 26-item survey was constructed to assess the optimal use of simulators for the teaching of medical procedures in an internal medicine residency curriculum. Survey domains were generated inde...

BACKGROUND The optimal degree of heparin anticoagulation for peripheral vascular interventions (PVIs) has not been defined. We sought to correlate total heparin dose and peak procedural activated clotting time (ACT) with postprocedural outcomes in patients undergoing PVI. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied 4743 patients who received heparin during PVIs in a regional, multicenter registry. From th...

To assess the interrelation of clinical and procedural factors responsible for restenosis, 119 patients undergoing coronary arteriography were studied a mean of 5.8 +/- 3 months after successful multiple percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. In all clinical, angiographic and procedural variables, the 119 patients undergoing repeat catheterization were similar to the 87 patients that d...

The type of tactics in all (procedural) proof assistants is (a variant of) that introduced in LCF. We discuss why this is inconvenient and we propose a new type for tactics that 1) allows the implementation of more clever tactics; 2) improves the implementation of declarative languages on top of procedural ones; 3) allows for better proof structuring; 4) improves proof automation; 5) allows tac...

The objective was to systematically review the literature to identify and grade tools used for the end point assessment of procedural skills (e.g., phlebotomy, IV cannulation, suturing) competence in medical students prior to certification. The authors searched eight bibliographic databases electronically - ERIC, Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, Psychinfo, PsychLIT, EBM Reviews and the Cochrane databas...