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Biomedical subjects

E A Krause

Publications and source records attributed to E A Krause.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

Radiosurgery: a nursing perspective.

The term radiosurgery, originally applied to three-dimensional stereotactic irradiation of small intracranial targets with low-energy x-rays, has more recently been applied to widely differing techniques and radiation sources. These include gamma units using cobalt-60; beams of protons, helium ions and neutrons; and modified cobalt-60 or linear accelerator units. These techniques allow delivery of a high dose of radiation in a single fraction to a small and well-defined intracranial volume, without delivering significant radiation to adjacent normal tissue. The most usual targets for radiosurgery are arteriovenous malformations. It is occasionally used for acoustic neuromas and primary or metastatic brain malignancies as well. Although radiosurgery is not a new procedure, its use is becoming more widespread. Nurses, as critical members of radiosurgery teams, must be informed about all aspects of the procedures and associated nursing care skills.

Brain Neoplasms

Doctors, partitocrazia, and the Italian state.

Political and economic forces are determinants of the social position of the professions in any country, but in Italy the political parties exercise such extensive control that no profession can function independent of political party decision making. The medical profession thus developed in close connection with the state, reflecting in the split between generalists and specialists with its professional organization (ordini) differences between the political parties. The attempt of the state to rationalize the health system and control costs through the mechanism of the Italian national health service had the ironic effect of unifying the profession in opposition and thereby increasing its strength. The case of Italy shows the standard conceptual models of professional autonomy to be incomplete because they fail to account for the central role of political parties.

Education, Medical

The political context of health service regulation.

Can regulation work in health services, given the present political context? General issues in the regulatory process are discussed, followed by a consideration of the relevance of these issues to the health care field. Regulatory processes are reviewed for the United States in four areas: credentialling of people, surveillance of delivery systems, quality of materials and technology, and rate-setting or cost control. It is concluded that the process cannot work. Four alternatives are presented and briefly evaluated: tinkering, centralized regulation, national health service, and general nationalization of most major economic sectors.

Accreditation