Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Robert N Braun.
Comparing cases' profiles of a five years frequency recorded by the same doctor in a "normal" small rural general practice near Vienna with the profiles of frequency in his following Tyrolean small rural private practice during 4 years, where he preferably had applied alternative methods, showed very similar rankings of his results of consultations. Never before case-statistics of such material had been published.
The frequency of mental illness is often mistaken for the frequency of those worries and depressed feelings, which very often accompany somatic problems. The general practitioner is aware of these minor psychic disturbances presented together with somatic complaints, but he does not express this in his label of the result of consultation. In general practice somatic problems far prevail. Among the 3% at the most mental illnesses in general practice/family medicine "polymorphous complaints of probably non organic origin" are, together with depression, the disorders most often seen.
At present the results of basic research in general practice are neither widely appreciated, nor understood in its great importance. At the Technische Universität in Munich, Germany, however, teaching of general practice on the basis of these cognitions a few years ago was started and is well accepted by the faculty and the students. The urgently needed continuation of basic research and a better teaching of medicine applied at the front-line will require another organization of the general practice departments created at the universities.
A worldwide frequently applied HMG-CoA-reductase-inhibitor ("statin") recently has been withdrawn from the market. This obviously has been caused by serious adverse events. The question is whether the package inserts sufficiently inform about the risks. But, although they list up numerous side effects, they lack informations concerning the frequency of them, so the patients when reading the package inserts become confused. Thus they have to rely on their doctors choice regarding the danger outlined in the inserts. In that respect packing inserts could be improved.
To cope with minor surgery in general practice is rewarding and should be done too. Since the figure of cutaneous pyogenic infections has dropped remarkably since World War II, the practitioners are not put under much pressure by these occurrences if they only refer a few of them. The figures of this study should be helpful in teaching surgery for students at university clinics.