Hospital-treated myocardial infarction and the general practitioner

Patients who had a myocardial infarction were interviewed with their spouses in hospital and after returning home. Advice about rehabilitation, such as that recently recommended by the Working Party of the Royal College of Physicians, was often not received. General practitioners have great opportunities for organising a graded programme of rehabilitation and may often communicate ideas more easily to their patients than hospital staff. However, some practitioners are reluctant to do this work.     

Panoramic radiography for the general practitioner

A total of 74 patients with suspected discal hernia were studied. To clarify its diagnosis, epidural scintigraphy along with routine studies was used. The established diagnosis was verified during surgery. Carbonic acid laser was applied to 22 patients in addition to the conventional procedures.     

Prolonged sick-leave: the role of general practitioner

The aim was to study why long sick leave benefit cases had taken a long time with special focus on the communication between the general practitioner and the social service department. An explorative study was made of the development and communication in 27 consecutive lengthy sick leave cases that had lasted more than 13 weeks, that were discussed at three audit panels with participation of the social worker/officer in charge, the general practitioner and the representatives from the local hospital. The study took place in Aarhus County in 1994. The results were that many of the same problems were found in various cases, such as insufficient certificates, inappropriate use of benefit certificates, waiting times for examinations, treatment and especially rehabilitation. In the more complicated cases, of which there were many, a coordinating person would have helped matters. The GP's were willing to take on this role. The main reasons for lengthy benefit cases were that the illness was medically complicated and of a long duration.     

The general practitioner and electrolyte disturbances]

Serum electrolytes (sodium, potassium) are frequently included in usual clinical chemistry orders, for example in annual checkups in target groups. The clinical significance of abnormalities of these parameters, and the logical order of complementary analyses is reviewed.     

The general practitioner as sports physician

General practitioners must become more knowledgeable about sports medicine in order both to treat the injured athlete and to provide better rehabilitative treatment and advice on fitness and exercise to other patients. Close involvement with young amateur athletes also helps to keep the older physician "in tune" with the younger generation. Finances remain a major problem for amateur sporting events and sports medicine groups, as well as for the individual physician volunteering his time.     

What drug information does the general practitioner need?

There is a great need for imporved drug information services within the Australian medical community. The need has been only partly assessed and should be more objectively surveyed as part of any development of drug information services. Whatever service is established, it should be easily accessible, pay particular attention to the language used in communication, and have a significant ongoing educational component.     

Measuring general practitioner psychology: the personal construct perspective

After the transplantation of bone marrow, patients with leukemia are easily infected by kinds of microorganism and die. In this paper, F-mice with the 60Co-gamma irradiation (maximum lethal dose) were transplanted bone marrow, then control the microorganism in the environment. Morever the laminar flow wards for the leukemia patient of bone marrow transplantation were designed according to the data combined with the clinic condition. There is no any infection in twelve patients with bone marrow transplantation from 1989 to 1993.     

The psychologist as general family practitioner.

Responses from 1,412 psychologists in United States, who indicated that private practice is their full-time occupation, showed that over 90% of them have been seeing different members of families for different reasons at different times over a period of years. Initially a child may have been seen for poor school adjustment; a year later one of the parents may have sought therapy for depression, and some years later a child may have come for college counseling. Such psychologists are functioning as general family practitioners or family psychologists. A review of theoretical orientation and geographical locations, as well as length of time in practice, suggests that this type of functioning is quite widespread among private practitioners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The behavior of the general practitioner in dealing with tachycardia

In medical practice the physician may face 3 situations when dealing with tachycardia or arrhythmia: 1) when seen, the patient has tachycardia and the physician has no electrocardiograph: 2) the patient has tachycardia and the physician can take an electrocardiogramm; 3) the patient discloses a history suggestive of tachycardia or arrhythmia. In the first situation the heart rate and rhythm must be carefully observed immediately, as well as jugular venous pulse and heart sounds and murmurs; then the effects of respiration, change in posture, and carotid sinus pressure should be evaluated; finally, a complete physical examination should be carried out and the patient's history taken; for the latter, questions should be asked concerning past episodes, intake of digitalis or other drugs, possible reasons for hypokalemia, and presence of any disease that might play a role. In the second situation, the ECG should be recorded at once by the physician himself (first V1-2 and DII); the subsequent workup is the same as for the first situation. In the third situation a highly detailed patient's history is of the utmost importance. If recurring episodes take place, their ECG recording should be tried by all possible means: the most important factor is the physicians readiness to do so. A hospital stay for observation of an epidose is usually fruitless, as is an exercise ECG. 24 h recording may be useful, as may endocavitary recording and stimulation tests. Any tachycardia should be correctly related to the natural history of the patient's disease.     

Elementary anatomy for the future general practitioner: the arteries

SUT-8701 is a cholecystokinin octapeptide (CCK8) analog and a more lipophilic peptide than CCK8. We previously demonstrated that intra-ventricularly administered CCK8 protected against the degeneration of the cholinergic neurons in the cortex of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (nbm)-lesioned rat. We determined whether SUT-8701 and CCK8 have the ability to protect against cholinergic degeneration in the cerebral cortex of nbm-lesioned rats. Systemically administered SUT-8701 (0.1-1 micrograms/day/animal, s.c.) preserved choline acetyltransferase activity and K(+)-evoked acetylcholine release in nbm-lesioned rats. SUT-8701 was more potent than CCK8. However, SUT-8701 was much less potent than CCK8 in satiety action. The affinity of SUT-8701 to the cholecystokinin (CCK) receptors assessed by using [125I]-CCK8 was almost the same as that of CCK8 in the mouse cerebral cortex, but was 107 times less than that of CCK8 in guinea pig pancreas. These results suggest that SUT-8701 may be effective in slowing down the degenerative processes in Alzheimer's disease by preserving the integrity of cholinergic neurons in the nucleus basalis.