The safety of outpatient UPPP for obstructive sleep apnea: a retrospective review of 40 cases.
Abstract We retrospectively reviewed the outcomes of 40 patients who had undergone outpatient uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) for the treatment of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in order to determine the safety of the procedure in an outpatient setting. Postoperatively, 36 of the 40 patients (90%) were...

Comment on "The Shortage in Market-Inalienable Human Organs": Faulty Analysis of a Failed Policy.
DAVID L. KASERMAN [*] ABSTRACT. In the 1998 article "The Shortage in Market-Inalienable Human Organs: A Consideration of 'Nonmarket' Failures" in this journal, Emanuel D. Thorne advocates increased exhortation and advises against the adoption of markets in cadaveric organ procurement. In support of this view, Thorne offers...

Medicare's plans for 2008 inpatient payments.
On April 13, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposed rule for the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) for federal fiscal year 2008. Last year, the CMS proposed radical revisions to the diagnostic related groups (DRGs) that would determine hospital payments for 2007. These proposed...

Safety of endoscopic sinus surgery in a residency training program.
Abstract Over the past decade, endoscopic sinus surgery has become one of the most frequently performed operations in otolaryngology. Nevertheless, concerns have been raised about the safety of this procedure in a residency training program. To address this issue, we carried out a retrospective review to assess...

Does the U.S. need an advanced practice initiative?
This paper summarizes the motivating factors behind the creation of advanced practice initiatives for radiation therapy in Canada and the United Kingdom and for diagnostic radiology in the United States. Three major factors appear to have driven the development of advanced practice: a rapid increase in the use of...

Measuring diagnoses: ICD code accuracy.
Nosology (the systematic classification of diseases) has always fascinated the sick and their would-be healers. Western societies developed an interest in nosology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when they began to track the causes of sickness and death among their citizens. In the twentieth century, when medical insurance...

The Trial Of Mid-Urethral Slings (TOMUS): design and methodology: Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network (UITN) *.
ABSTRACT Objective: Mid-urethral slings (MUS) are increasingly common surgical procedures for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) in women. There are currently no adequately powered trials with sufficient length of follow-up comparing the efficacy or safety of the transobturator and retropubic MUS. As a result, no...

History of ophthalmology at Baylor University Medical Center.
Ophthalmology has been a specialty at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) since the opening of its predecessor institution, the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium. The first operative procedure at that institution was an ocular surgery performed by Dr. Edward H. Cary in 1909 (1). A review of the...

HEALTHCARE AND TECHNOLLOGY Hand in Hand Toward the Future.
Advances in technology have always impacted treatments, and within the last decade, they have been breathtaking in their scope. Every day, a breakthrough occurs or a novel treatment is discovered. From scientific theory to noninvasive blood monitoring, here are some of the new, technology-driven advances in healthcare. ...

A feminist case against self-determined dying in assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Familiar clarion calls for choice, autonomy, and the moral right to control one's own body ring forth in current movements to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. In the United States dedicated activists, some physicians and certain respected ethicists make a moral case for the right to assisted suicide and...