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Biomedical subjects

D E Torphy

Publications and source records attributed to D E Torphy.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

Effects of a faculty prepaid group practice in a pediatric primary care clinic.

Medical student and resident education at a hospital-operated pediatric primary care clinic (PPCC) was threatened by chronic financial deficits and by a state mandate that all patients receiving medical care through the state Aid to Families with Dependent Children program be enrolled in a health maintenance organization (HMO). To comply with the mandate, the PPCC was reorganized in 1984 as a faculty-operated prepaid group practice independent of the hospital. The new PPCC contracted with an HMO to provide care, with reimbursement based on capitation. The PPCC continues to serve the same patient population as before the reorganization, continues its teaching activities, and no longer has financial deficits. The experience at this clinic shows that converting to a faculty prepaid group practice can be cost-effective, promote efficiency, and improve faculty-hospital relations. Such a group practice is an appropriate organization for maintaining medical education programs while providing care in a capitation payment system.

Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Cardiorespiratory arrest and resuscitation of children.

Ninety-one patients had cardiorespiratory arrest in a children's hospital emergency department over six years. Only five children survived, three with severe neurologic sequelae. The records of 40 other children in the same community resuscitated by paramedics, but taken to other hospitals, were reviewed and there were three survivors. The causes and outcomes of resuscitation of children are clearly different from those of adults. Cardiac disease and ventricular arrhythmias are uncommon. Neurologically intact survival was seen only in those children who received immediate resuscitation and responded promptly. Research in cerebral resuscitation at the cellular level is promising for the future. Prevention of some cardiorespiratory arrests through accident prevention and earlier recognition of serious infections is possible now.

Brain Diseases

Assessment of acute asthma in the emergency room: evaluation of compliance and combined drug therapy.

Thirty-three chronic asthmatic children and adolescents on predetermined doses of theophylline preparations who arrived at the Emergency Room with an acute episode of wheezing were evaluated to determine compliance, and if therapeutic plasma theophylline levels (PTLs) facilitate the effectiveness of epinephrine. Patients were divided into three groups based on the requirement of one, two, or three doses of epinephrine. In the total group of patient visits, only 25% took the theophylline preparations as prescribed. The poor responders group requiring three injections of epinephrine was characterized by the lowest compliance and the highest unacceptable PTLs. It appears that therapeutic PTLs enhance the response to epinephrine. The evaluation of compliance in case of epinephrine failure is recommended.

Adolescent

Campylobacter fetus infections in children.

There has been a gradual accumulation of reported Campylobacter fetus human infections since the first description in 1947. The taxonomy of these fastidious and morphologically confusing organisms has been recently revised and, in the past few years, through the use of selective culture medium for stool isolation C fetus has been implicated as a frequent paghogen in children. There are three relatively distinct patterns of human C fetus infection. The first, most frequent, pattern of disease is enteritis which is usually uncomplicated and due to C fetus subsp jejuni. A second form of disease consists of focal infections, often associated with vasculitis and/or chronic bacteremia. These infections, due to C fetus subsp intestinalis, are seen most often in older, debilitated, or chronically ill men. The third pattern, perinatal infections causing abortion, prematurity, and neonatal meningitis, is the least frequent, but these infections are usually fetal to the fetus or infant and are also due to C fetus subsp intestinalis.

Animals