Biomedical subjects

H A Donegan

Publications and source records attributed to H A Donegan.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1993

Consensus in medical communication.

This paper discusses a survey which was carried out to investigate the types of risks and inconveniences which are normally disclosed by surgeons before operations. By restricting the survey to a specific operation, the Charnley Hip Replacement procedure, greater precision in replies was obtained. The results, however, shed light on both the medical and the legal aspects of informed decision in surgery generally. The survey data was analysed using the concept of neighbourhood consensus [1: Dodd F. J. and Donegan H. A. Proc. of ILIAM 6, pp. 17-29. University of Ulster Press, Ulster, 1989].

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1993

What do orthopaedic surgeons tell patients?

Surgical patients have the right to clear communication regarding diagnosis, treatment and prognosis including risks and likelihood of success. In order to ascertain the level of consensus which exists among orthopaedic surgeons about what patients should be told, a short questionnaire comprising a fictitious case history of a candidate for total hip replacement and a list of sample statements was mailed to all orthopaedic surgeons in Northern Ireland; 86% replied. Surgeons were in general agreement about what the patient should and should not be told prior to operation. This approach may be adapted for other procedures.

Hip Prosthesis↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Towards computer assisted evaluation of plagiocephaly.

Plagiocephaly is a common asymmetry of the skull giving the impression that the subject, usually a neonate, has suffered a compressive force acting unilaterally. Normally innocuous, it is a postural deformity that can be suggestive of other significant abnormalities, e.g. joint dysplasia. Although intuitive measurements of plagiocephaly appear in the literature there is little evidence of analytical evaluation. This paper describes a measurement methodology based on black and white photography. A flat-bed scanner and a personal computer facilitated the transformation of the prepared photograph to standard tagged image file format at 256 grey scale. A utility was used to convert the file scan to a monochrome bitmap image which was displayed on the screen and subjected to an algorithm to compute the centroid of the cranial profile. Radials that emerge from the centroid to the cranial circumference at five degree intervals map to a signal display that represents the plagiocephaly.

Cephalometry↗