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Biomedical subjects

W Savage

Publications and source records attributed to W Savage.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Designing a community-based fourth-year obstetrics and gynaecology module: an example of innovative curriculum development.

INTRODUCTION: This paper describes the design and evaluation of the community-based obstetrics and gynaecology module at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry. This module sets out to comply with the General Medical Council's recommendations of encouraging students to consider the community perspective, and places less emphasis on a disease-orientated approach. OBJECTIVES: The development of the module, issues of improving student acceptance of the course, staff development and the benefits of community teaching in obstetrics and gynaecology are discussed. MODULE ORGANIZATION: The 2-week module precedes the 8-week hospital obstetrics and gynaecology firms that occur in the fourth undergraduate year. The course is organized into three components: general practice, departmental teaching, and self-directed learning. Students are allocated to general practices for their clinical teaching, for eight sessions. Seven departmental sessions are run by the Academic Department of General Practice and Primary Care. These include a review of the students' self-directed learning. EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION: Evaluation data are reported for the three components of the course. Overall the majority of students rated the module as useful, GP attachments being most favourably received. The majority of students have grasped the basic obstetric and gynaecological history and examination skills and found this useful before starting their hospital firms. Aspects of a specialist subject, such as, obstetrics and gynaecology, can be taught successfully in the community and GP tutors are, as yet, an untapped source of excellent obstetric and gynaecology teaching.

Community Medicine↗
PubMed1994

Women's knowledge of emergency contraception.

BACKGROUND: More widespread use of emergency contraception could help to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. AIM: The objective of this study was to assess women's knowledge of emergency contraception. METHOD: A questionnaire was distributed to 1290 women aged between 16 and 50 years attending 14 general practice surgeries in London over a two-week period in 1990. RESULTS: The response rate was 70%. Over three quarters of the women had heard of emergency contraception; these were mainly women who used contraception, who had higher educational qualifications or who were not Muslim. Women who were the most likely to need and to use emergency contraception--those using barrier methods--had no more accurate knowledge than women using any other method of contraception. Only 53% of barrier method users knew emergency contraception could be used as a backup when other methods failed. Only one fifth of women had heard about this method from their general practitioner or any other health professional, while half had obtained their information from the media. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that including information on emergency contraception in consultations with users of barrier methods of contraception is a small step which general practitioners and practice nurses could take to increase the use of emergency contraception.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Caesarean section in Britain and the United States 12% or 24%: is either the right rate?

The rate of caesarean section (CSR) in Great Britain (GB) and the U.S.A., 12% in England in 1989 ascertained from a survey performed by the authors, and 24% according to official U.S. figures, is higher than warranted by the known and agreed obstetric indications for this operation, which suggest a rate of 6-8% would be adequate. It is argued that the fall in perinatal mortality which has occurred over the period during which the CS rate has risen is not the main reason for this fall. The training of obstetricians to deal with anxiety, provision of primary maternity care by appropriately trained midwives and general or family practitioners, and changes in management protocols could cut the CSR. The number of women undergoing surgery every year in the U.K. could be reduced by 20,000 and in the U.S.A. by 470,000 if the rate of 6% were achieved. In studies of midwifery care the CSR is even lower and it is possible that labour proceeds more efficiently if the woman knows her caregivers and labours at home, as in The Netherlands. Although CS is much safer than in the past it is still more likely to result in the death of the woman and has significant morbidity for the woman and economic costs for society.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1992

Plant nurseries: a reliable resource for plant identification?

Poison Centers frequently rely on the assistance of local plant nurseries to identify unknown plants involved in exposures. The reliability and accuracy of utilizing this method has never been studied; therefore, our objective was to evaluate this primary resource of plant identification. A study was done in which callers were instructed to take plant samples to a local nursery for visual identification. Once the patient was treated according to our normal protocol, the plant specimen was sent to a botanist for a second identification. The botanist provided his identification results through a blinded process. The collected data was gathered from 68 cases that completed the necessary study criteria. In 58% of the cases, plant nurseries were an unreliable source for plant identification. These incorrect identifications resulted in the "undertreatment" in 24% of the exposures.

Animals↗