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Biomedical subjects

D H Metcalfe

Publications and source records attributed to D H Metcalfe.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1978

Febrile convulsions--what do parents do?

To find out about the medical and parental management of children having their first febrile convulsion a hospital-based questionnaire study was carried out in which parents were asked what they did at the time. Fifty-four out of 89 parents brought their child directly to hospital while the remainder attempted to contact their general practitioner, usually successfully, and were then referred to hospital. Whichever course of action the parents chose the outcome was satisfactory. Eighty-seven per cent of convulsions lasted for less than 15 minutes and in only two instances did they last longer than 30 minutes. One child who had convulsions for an hour was given intramuscular phenobarbitone at home without success, and the fit was finally terminated with intravenous diazepam. Parental management of the fit was often widly inappropriate. Only a few parents laid the child on his side and waited for the fit to stop. The parents were bewildered and frightened--30% thought their child was dying or dead. Education of patents of young children is needed. Simply written instructions on how to reduce the temperature of a febrile child and manage a convulsion might help.

Attitude↗
PubMed1978

Doctors' attitudes to information systems: a survey of Derbyshire general practitioners.

This paper describes the results of a survey of all 365 general practitioners in Derbyshire. It deals in particular with their attitudes to information systems and the factors which affect them. The results show that there is much more interest in continuous data collection from primary care than is often supposed. This is particularly so among younger general practitioners. The survey thus describes the possible interest in information recording amongst a typical population of general practitioners.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

The teaching of medical ethics.

The subject of medical ethics is intended to run like a thread throughout the whole undergraduate period at the Nottingham Medical School which was established in 1970, the first such foundation in Britain this century. Dr J S P Jones, who is the Clinical Subdean, and Dr D H H Metcalfe,of the Department of Community Health, describe the plan of the course leading to qualifying, and how the thread of medical ethics has been woven into that fabric. The final objective of the course is to train men and women to become technologically capable and at the same time alive to the human needs of their patients. The authors define the two crucial characteristics of the fully trained professional as a person - self regulating and self policing - who advises and does not command those who come to him as patients.

Codes of Ethics↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The computer in general practice.

Interest in computers is becoming commonplace in general practice. Many practices in the UK have already installed complete systems, others are in the processes of developing them. Most general practitioners will buy complete systems off-the-shelf, but a small minority will do their own systems design and programming. The computer, as part of an information system for general practice, will go through three phases: the cross-indexing system, the narrative record, and the decision aid. All systems currently installed are at the level of the cross-indexing system. This retains the traditional clinical record as the main repository of information stored in hard copy, but provides convenient and entropy proof methods of identifying cohorts of patients by such characteristics as age, sex, social class, geographical distribution, or disease entity. The purposes for this will be preventive medicine, quality control, administrative planning, educational planning, and possibly research. These functions replace manual systems which have been in use by a small number of general practitioners for twenty years, but which have never gained general acceptance partly because of their clumsiness and partly because they were seen as research tools. The step to the narrative record will not be worth the investment in resource or energy if it is purely to store the current undisciplined paper record in electronic medium. It will only be worthwhile if two preconditions are met: firstly, that some standardized form of recording such as problem-orientated medical records are accepted and, secondly, if it is accepted by the doctor that he is handing over a certain amount of control to the system which will prompt, cue and remind him of things that have to be done.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Computers↗