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The Duke University Health System in Durham, NC, has responded to patients' efforts to gain more information about how two hospitals mistakenly washed surgical instruments in used hydraulic fluid instead of detergent and failed to notice the mix-up for weeks. Approximately 3,800 patients were exposed to the contaminated instruments during surgery.
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Only about one in four physicians in the United States use e-mail to communicate clinical information to patients, and one reason may be a lack of effective means of billing for e-mail time. But some say they don't yet know enough about what quality of care can be delivered via patients' e-mail inboxes.
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The recent federal approval of nonprescription sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B (Barr Laboratories; Woodcliffe Lake, NJ) to women and men ages 18 and older may have quieted what was a brewing controversy in emergency medicine. However, the ethical issues that gave rise to the debate still are very much in play, emergency department (ED) experts say.
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In its infancy, neuroethics was thought of as simply a small offshoot of the bigger field of bioethics. In the last five years, however, interest in and study of neuroethics has taken on a life of its own, spawning studies, conferences, and the establishment of a society to further the development of the field. The term "neuroethics" is believed to have been coined in the literature in the early 1990s.
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A paper released in November by a British bioethics council has generated hot debate and headlines warning "disabled babies to be killed at birth," but the guidelines set out by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics regarding the treatment of babies born severely premature are similar to those observed in many states in the United States.
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Twenty-eight hospitals and about 800 nursing homes will receive comprehensive inspections from the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) because of high injury rates.
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Are you providing your employees with adequate respiratory protection? Too often the answer is no, some respiratory protection experts worry. But matching the right device to the hazard remains a difficult task, fraught with conflicting guidance.
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A new vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza appears to be safe and effective, according to early research results. And health care workers may be among the first candidates for the vaccine, experts say.
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Effective tuberculin skin testing relies on the proper administration of the test.
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A labor and delivery nurse at Northside Hospital in Atlanta went to work with active tuberculosis for about three months, exposing 37 newborns, about 160 other patients, and colleagues. Based on news reports, she was the third nurse in two years to continue to work while having active TB. One nurse in Virginia died of undiagnosed TB.
