Jeju is the largest island in Korea and one of its key tourist attractions. As the number of foreign tourists steadily increases, so does the number of injuries incurred there. Accordingly, this study aimed to describe and compare the characteristics of injuries suffered by foreign tourists versus those of domestic tourists. As a cross-sectional study of a retrospective medical record survey, the study was conducted with reference to the Jeju Injury Surveillance System from the 11-year period of January 2008 to December 2018. The following factors were investigated: demographic data, mechanism of injury, place of occurrence, activity when injured, patient outcome, and mortality. A total of 92,095 injured Jeju Island visitors was recorded during this time, a number that included 88,050 Koreans and 4,045 foreigners. The gender ratio showed similar patterns between the two groups and there were no significant age differences. In both groups, the most common mechanism of injury was collisions/cuts. Also, more foreigners experienced falls than Koreans. Regarding the location, Koreans had the most road accidents, while foreigners were most likely to be injured at outdoor locations, such as seas and rivers. Furthermore, more foreigners experienced severe injuries requiring hospitalization. Notably, this study showed the differences in injury between foreign and Korean tourists visiting Jeju Island and its findings lend support to targeted safety promotion programs.

The pharmacokinetic properties of transdermal nicotine patches (TNPs) are different from those of other routes of nicotine administration; further, acute nicotine poisoning by TNPs may present with different clinical features. In the present report, we describe the case of a 23-year-old woman who was admitted to emergency department (ED) at Jeju National University Hospital with loss of consciousness. Five hours before the ED visit, she used multiple TNPs to attempt suicide. Initially, nausea and vomiting occurred, and the symptoms worsened over time. We immediately removed the TNPs, and the application sites were gently washed with sterile water. The patient’s level of consciousness gradually improved, and she fully recovered an altered mental status 5 hours later. Her initial urinary cotinine level was 324 ng/mL. Physicians should be aware that acute nicotine poisoning by TNPs can cause various toxic symptoms.

Purpose: To evaluate the severity of trauma, many scoring systems and predictive models have been presented. The quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) is a simple scoring system based on vital signs, and we expect it to be easier to apply to trauma patients than other trauma assessment tools. methods: This study was a cross-sectional study of trauma patients who visited the emergency department of Jeju National University Hospital. We excluded patients under the age of 18 years and unknown outcomes. We calculated the qSOFA, the Modified Early Warning Score (mEWS), Revised Trauma Score (RTS), and Injury Severity Score (ISS) based on patients' initial vital signs and assessments performed in the emergency department (ED). The primary outcome was mortality within 14 days of trauma. We analyzed qSOFA scores using multivariate logistic regression analysis and compared the predictive accuracy of these scoring systems using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). results: In total, 27,764 patients were analyzed. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis of the qSOFA, the adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence interval (CI) for mortality relative to a qSOFA score of 0 were 27.82 (13.63-56.79) for a qSOFA score of 1, 373.31 (183.47-759.57) for a qSOFA score of 2, and 494.07 (143.75-1698.15) for a qSOFA score of 3. In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis for the qSOFA, mEWS, ISS, and RTS in predicting the outcomes, for mortality, the AUROC for the qSOFA (AUROC [95% CI]; 0.912 [0.871-0.952]) was significantly greater than those for the ISS (0.700 [0.608-0.793]) and RTS (0.160 [0.108-0.211]). Conclusions: The qSOFA was useful for predicting the prognosis of trauma patients evaluated in the ED.