OBJECTIVE:To describe the profile of physicians working at the Prehospital Emergency Medical System (SAMU) in Brazil and to evaluate their quality of life.METHODS:Both a semi-structured questionnaire with 57 questions and the SF-36 questionnaire were sent to research departments within SAMU in the Brazilian state capitals, the Federal District and inland towns in Brazil.RESULTS:Of a total of 902 physicians, including 644 (71.4%) males, 533 (59.1%) were between 30 and 45 years of age and 562 (62.4%) worked in a state capital. Regarding education level, 45.1% had graduated less than five years before and only 43% were specialists recognized by the Brazilian Medical Association. Regarding training, 95% did not report any specific training for their work at SAMU. The main weaknesses identified were psychiatric care and surgical emergencies in 57.2 and 42.9% of cases, respectively; traumatic pediatric emergencies, 48.9%; and medical emergencies, 42.9%. As for procedure-related skills, the physicians reported difficulties in pediatric advanced support (62.4%), airway surgical access (45.6%), pericardiocentesis (64.4%) and thoracentesis (29.9%). Difficulties in using an artificial ventilator (43.3%) and in transcutaneous pacing (42.2%) were also reported. Higher percentages of young physicians, aged 25-30 years (26.7 vs 19.0%; p<0.01), worked exclusively in prehospital care (18.0 vs 7.7%; p<0.001), with workloads >48 h per week (12.8 vs 8.6%; p<0.001), and were non-specialists with the shortest length of service (<1 year) at SAMU (30.1 vs 18.2%; p<0.001) who were hired without having to pass public service exams* (i.e., for a temporary job) (61.8 vs 46.2%; p<0.001). Regarding quality of life, the pain domain yielded the worst result among physicians at SAMU.CONCLUSIONS:The doctors in this sample were young and within a few years of graduation, and they had no specific training in prehospital emergencies. Deficiencies were mostly found in pediatrics and psychiatry, with specific deficiencies in the handling of essential equipment and in the skills necessary to adequately attend to prehospital emergencies. A disrespectful labor scenario was also found; the evaluation of quality of life showed a notable presence of pain on the SF-36 among physicians at SAMU and especially among doctors who had worked for a longer length of time at SAMU.

The identification of these risk factors is of paramount importance for the development of care strategies for patients suffering from severe trauma, for the prevention of acute kidney injury and the associated high mortality.

SUMMARY OBJECTIVE: To determine if there are significant differences between the tutorial, simulation, or clinical-case-based discussion teaching methods regarding the transmission of medical knowledge on mechanical ventilation. METHODS: A randomized, multicenter, open-label controlled trial was carried out using 3 teaching methods on mechanical ventilation: clinical-case-based discussion, simulation, and online tutorial. Voluntary students of the sixth year of medical school from 11 medical colleges answered a validated questionnaire on knowledge about mechanical ventilation for medical students before, immediately after, and 6 months after in-person training consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions, and 5 questions about the participants' demographic profile. RESULTS: Immediately after the test there was no difference between the scores in the simulation and clinical case groups,[15,06 vs 14,63] whereas, after some time, there was a significant difference in retention between the case-based and simulation groups, with the score in the simulation group 1.46 [1.31; 1.64] times higher than the score of the case group (p-value < 0.001). In the multivariate analysis, an individual who had received more than 4 hours of information showed an increase of 20.0% [09.0%; 33.0%] in the score (p-value = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that, in comparison with other forms of training, simulation in mechanical ventilation provides long-lasting knowledge in the medium term. Further studies are needed to improve the designing and evaluation of training that provides minimal mechanical ventilation skills.

Patients with acute calculous cholecystitis have a considerable prevalence of bacteremia in the pre-operative period. It is associated with old age, heart rate, respiratory rate, serum creatinine and systemic inflammatory response syndrome. In patients with acute calculous cholecystitis, presence of bacteremia may be associated to severity of the condition and poor outcome related to pos-operative complications.

AIM:To report on the causes of trauma, indexes of trauma, and mortality related to thoracic trauma in one region of Brazil.MATERIALS AND METHODS:This prospective study was performed at the Regional Trauma Center in São José do Rio Preto over a 1-year period, from 1st July 2004 to 30th June 2005. We included all patients attending the center's emergency room with thoracic trauma and an anatomic injury scale (AIS) ≥ 2. We collected data using a protocol completed on arrival in hospital utilizing the AIS. We studied the types of accidents as well as the mortality and the AIS scores. Prevalence rates were calculated and the paired t-test and logistic regression were employed for the statistical analysis.RESULTS:There were a total of 373 casualties with AIS ≥ 2 and there were 45 (12%) deaths. The causes of thoracic trauma among the 373 casualties were as follows: 91 (24.4%) car crashes, 75 (20.1%) falls, 46 (12.3%) motorbike accidents, 40 (10.7%) stabbings, 22 (5.9%) accidents involving pedestrians, 21 (5.6%) bicycle accidents, 17 (4.6%) shootings, and 54 (14.5%) other types of accident. The severity of the injuries was classified according to the AIS: 224 (60%) were grade 2, 101 (27%) were grade 3, 27 (7.2%) were grade 4, 18 (4.9%) were grade 5, and 3 were (0.8%) grade 6. With respect to thoracic trauma, pedestrians involved in accidents and victims of shootings had mortality rates that were significantly higher than that of those involved in other types of accidents.CONCLUSION:Road accidents are the main cause of thoracic injury, with accidents involving pedestrians and shootings being associated with a greater death rate.