Background: Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a basic method for cardiovascular disease diagnosis and treatment. Studies done to assess the appropriate use of TTE in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are scarce.Objectives: To assess the pattern of ordering TTE in King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH) and the appropriateness of its ordering.Methods: A retrospective study was done from October to November 2018 at KAUH, Echo lab, Jeddah City, KSA. Patients, more than 18 years who had TTE at KAUH were included.Results: The criteria used were the 2019 criteria for most patients and the orders were appropriate for 77.9% of the 954 patients. Orders were significantly inappropriate for patients who had older age, and the number of indications were significantly higher for those whose orders were -"maybe appropriate" (M). The anesthesia department for outpatients and the surgical department for inpatients ordered a significantly high number of inappropriate requests. Inpatients had a significantly higher percentage of "appropriate" (A) orders, and a significant positive correlation was present between patients' age and number of indications. Conclusion:There is a need to maximize compliance with AUCs and its effect on clinical results should be evaluated.

Background: Visual discomfort or asthenopia is presented through unpleasant somatic and perceptual symptoms including headaches, fatigue, light sensitivity, blurred text, diplopia, movement of letters, and fading and impaired reading performance. Its etiology can be prolonged exposure to near work tasks such as reading or computer use. The American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus stated that vision problems could negatively affect learning. Objectives: To measure the prevalence of visual discomfort among the medical students at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) and evaluate its effect on their academic performance. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2018 at KAU in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with 417 medical students. The data were collected using an electronic questionnaire that was sent to their phone numbers. The statistical analyses were done using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 21. Results: The visual discomfort symptom scores demonstrated that 87% of the participants scored low, while 12.2% scored moderately; none of the participants scored high. We did not find any significant relationship between visual discomfort and students' cumulative GPA or GPA of the last semester. We noted that the most common visual discomfort symptoms were associated with reading and light sensitivity. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that visual discomfort symptoms did not affect the cumulative or last semester GPA.