Profiles in Science: The William Osler Papers

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is making the archival collections of leaders in biomedical research and public health available on its Profiles in Science web site. Many of the collections have been donated to NLM and contain published and unpublished items, including books, journal volumes, pamphlets, diaries, letters, manuscripts, photographs, audiotapes, video clips, and other materials.

Sir William Osler (1849-1919) was a Canadian physician often called "the father of modern medicine" for the central role he played in revolutionizing medical education via the internship and residency system at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where medicine was taught "at the bedside." As part of its Profiles in Science project, the National Library of Medicine has collaborated with the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives to digitize and make available over the World Wide Web a selection of the William Osler Papers for use by educators and researchers. This site provides access to the portions of the William Osler collections of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives that have been selected for digitization.

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Burden of Depressive Disorders by Country, Sex, Age, and Year

From the abstract:

Depressive disorders were a leading cause of burden in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 1990 and 2000 studies. Here, we analyze the burden of depressive disorders in GBD 2010 and present severity proportions, burden by country, region, age, sex, and year, as well as burden of depressive disorders as a risk factor for suicide and ischemic heart disease.

Source: Public Library of Science, Medicine

Link to article: Burden of Depressive Disorders by Country, Sex, Age, and Year

The global burden of unsafe medical care: analytic modelling of observational studies

Abstract:

 

Objective To contextualise the degree of harm that comes from unsafe medical care compared with individual health conditions using the global burden of disease (GBD), a metric to determine how much suffering is caused by individual diseases.

Design Analytic modelling of observational studies investigating unsafe medical care in countries’ inpatient care settings, stratified by national income, to identify incidence of seven adverse events for GBD modelling. Observational studies were generated through a comprehensive search of over 16 000 articles written in English after 1976, of which over 4000 were appropriate for full text review.

Results The incidence, clinical outcomes, demographics and costs for each of the seven adverse events were collected from each publication when available. We used disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost as a standardised metric to measure morbidity and mortality due to specific adverse events. We estimate that there are 421 million hospitalisations in the world annually, and approximately 42.7 million adverse events. These adverse events result in 23 million DALYs lost per year. Approximately two-thirds of all adverse events, and the DALYs lost from them, occurred in low-income and middle-income countries.

Conclusions This study provides early evidence that adverse events due to medical care represent a major source of morbidity and mortality globally. Though suffering related to the lack of access to care in many countries remains, these findings suggest the importance of critically evaluating the quality and safety of the care provided once a person accesses health services. While further refinements of the estimates are needed, these data should be a call to global health policymakers to make patient safety an international priority.

 Source: British Medical Journal

BMJ Qual Saf 2013;22:809-815 doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2012-001748

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Retiree Out-of-Pocket Health Care Spending: A Study of Expert Views, Consumer.

From the abstract:

This article explores this previously unexamined question of how much Americans expect to pay for their out-of-pocket health care spending in retirement.  To answer this question,we surveyed 2000 near retirees and retirees to gauge their expectations with regard to their own likely expenditures.  We then compared their responses to experts’ estimates. Our findings suggest that, surprisingly, many respondents have a reasonable sense of the magnitude of likely out-of-pocket expenditures, at least for the median, or typical, retiree.  However, we also found people struggle to understand potential variability in expenditures that might cause them to spend more than the typical retiree.  In particular, they underestimate how much personal health experience can affect individual spending.These results suggest that misperception of typical spending may not be a primary factor in retirees’ inability to finance out-of-pocket health care costs, but that misperception of the risk of spending above the median is likely an important factor.  We discuss educational,regulatory, and health policy implications of our findings.

Souce: Hoffman, Allison K.; & Jackson, Howell E.(2012). Retiree Out-of-Pocket Health Care Spending: A Study of Expert Views, Consumer. UC Los Angeles: UCLA School of Law. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3w7521mn

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