Monitoring of medical practice.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C Faull.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
OBJECTIVES: To ascertain the effect of 12 months spent as a GP registrar on perceived skills in palliative care. DESIGN: A previously validated questionnaire for use with medical undergraduates is modified and used to survey perceived skills in five aspects of providing palliative care in five different scenarios at two points during the 12-month period of general practice vocational training where no specific teaching intervention is conducted. SETTING: The West Midlands. PARTICIPANTS: 210 GP registrars. RESULTS: Perceived skill ratings were seen to significantly increase during the 12-month period, but anxiety in caring for the dying did not significantly decrease. Ratings of skills were lowest when caring for a child dying with leukaemia or a young adult dying with AIDS. In addition, other important variables which had a statistically significant influence were gender and age, but interestingly not the number of previous senior house officer (SHO) posts undertaken or whether the respondent had had formal teaching on the subject in the past. CONCLUSION: It might therefore be postulated that training as a GP registrar has an important impact on the development of perceived skills in palliative care.
Controlling patients' symptoms in palliative care requires good communication skills. Pain, vomiting and nausea are common symptoms, but anorexia and sleep disturbance are also frequently reported. Thorough evaluation and treatment of the underlying cause is imperative. Pain is different for each patient. Pain control therefore may not be achieved with analgesics alone.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The synthetic opioid dipipanone is infrequently used in the UK in the management of malignant pain, principally because of the inflexibility of the Diconal combination preparation (dipipanone 10 mg with cyclizine 30 mg). We present three patients in which dipipanone elixir proved to be their own drug of choice in the management of opioid responsive cancer pain, and our experience with 15 other patients. Dipipanone elixir was formulated 10 mg/5 ml, in single strength chloroform water.
Dimensions of temperament and behaviour were measured in a group of infant school children with recurrent abdominal pain and in a control group. Children with recurrent abdominal pain were temperamentally more difficult than those without, and in particular, girls were found to have a more irregular temperamental style and boys to be more likely to withdraw in new situations. Temperamental differences were more persistent than the abdominal pain itself. There was little difference behaviourally between the groups. It is hypothesized that abdominal pain represents an interaction between a vulnerable temperamental style and environmental stresses.
This study investigated recurrent abdominal pain in all 494 second-year infant children in a new town using a postal questionnaire followed by sampling and detailed interview. A prevalence of between 24.5 and 26.9% was found and there were associations with psychiatric deviance both at home and at school. There were also associations with social support of the mother, difficulties in settling into school and status of house ownership. Details of parental management of their children's symptoms are described.