BACKGROUND Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) undergoing cardiac surgery have higher morbidity and decreased survival. Recent data revealed that surgical ablation (SA) is performed in only 39% of these patients, with variability among surgeons. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of clinical presentation and surgeon experience when making the decision to treat AF concomitantly...

Introduction Acute scrotal pain with or without swelling and erythema in the child or adolescent male should be treated as an emergent condition. The differential diagnosis includes: torsion of the spermatic cord, appendix testis or epididymis, epididymitis/orchitis, hernia, hydrocele, trauma, sexual abuse, tumor, idiopathic scrotal edema (dermatitis/insect bite), cellulitis, and vasculitis (He...

emergency departments (eds) are the most challenging ward with respect to patient delay. the goal of this study is to present strategies that have proven to reduce delay and overcrowding in eds. in this review article, initial electronic database search resulted in a total of 1006 articles. thirty articles were included after reviewing full texts. inclusion criteria were assessments of real pat...

introduction: patient safety culture is an important part of improvement in the safety of health care. knowing its present status is required for development of safety culture. the present study aimed to evaluate the current status of patient safety culture in hospitals of three central provinces of iran. method: the present cross-sectional study was performed in teaching hospitals of tehran, a...

BACKGROUND Women experiencing domestic violence (DV) frequent health care settings, but DV is rarely identified. METHODS We conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine the effect of computer screening on health care provider-patient DV communication at 2 socioeconomically diverse emergency departments (EDs). Consenting nonemergent female patients, aged 18 to 65 years, were randomized...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we examined the relationship between borderline personality symptomatology and somatic preoccupation among a sample of internal medicine outpatients. METHOD Using a cross-sectional approach and a sample of convenience, we surveyed 116 patients who presented for nonemergent medical care in an outpatient resident clinic between September 2005 and August 2007. Survey mea...

The change from a predominately fee-for-service payment environment to managed care has significantly reduced revenues for many clinical laboratories. Medicare is rapidly becoming the most favorable payor in areas with high managed-care penetration. This trend has not gone unnoticed by Congress, and congressional and regulatory initiatives are rapidly moving to reduce federal laboratory reimbur...

background diabetes is a common problem with severe complications. the control of diabetes needs a close and honest relationship between patients and health professionals. the views of these two groups might influence the professional relationship. objectives the purpose of this study was to identify the views of diabetic patients versus the views of diabetic care professionals on the content o...

background & aim: healthcare areas, especially fertility care (commonly accompanied with high emotions, as well as long-term and recurring treatment periods) could exclusively benefit from patient-centered care (pcc). despite evident advantages of pcc, this approach has not been practiced as a routine procedure in current clinical environments yet, even in western developed countries. therefore...