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To explore attitudes and practices of physicians relating to accessible medical diagnostic equipment in serving patients with mobility disability. Open-ended individual telephone interviews, which reached data saturation. Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim for qualitative conventional content analysis. Massachusetts, the United States, October 2017-January 2018. Practicing physicians from 5 clinical specialties (N=20). Not applicable. Common themes concerning physical accessibility. Mean ± SD time in practice was 27.5±12.5 years; 14 practices had height-adjustable examination tables; and 7 had wheelchair-accessible weight scales. The analysis identified 6 broad themes: height-adjustable examination tables have advantages; height-adjustable examination tables have drawbacks; transferring patients onto examination tables is challenging; rationale for examining patients in their wheelchairs; perceptions of wheelchair-accessible weight scales; and barriers and facilitators to improving physical accessibility. Major barriers identified by participants included costs of equipment, limited space, and inadequate payment for extra time required to care for persons with disability. Even physicians with accessible examination tables sometimes examined patients seated in their wheelchairs. Even if physicians have accessible equipment, they do not always use it in examining patients with disability. Future efforts will need to consider ways to eliminate these access barriers in clinical practice. Given small sample size, results are not generalizable to physicians nationwide and globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colombian Journal of Anesthesiology is the property of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Colombian Journal of Anesthesiology is the property of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: In this prospective study, medical and nursing health care professionals were asked to visually estimate various fluid volumes. The aims were to assess overall accuracy, and to identify factors that caused error. The effects of fluid volume, colour and clinical experience were analysed. 152 doctors and nurses were shown a selection of containers filled with five different volumes of fluid, each presented in three different colours. Subjects recorded their estimates of volume by filling in a questionnaire. There was considerable variation in accuracy between subjects. Very large standard deviations were noted, and some subjects were found to over-report, to a maximum of 700%. Nurses were more accurate than doctors (p =0.0003). Nurses’ accuracy was influenced by fluid colour but not volume, whereas the opposite was true for doctors. Doctors with more than 20 years’ clinical experience significantly overestimated volumes compared to their younger colleagues. This effect was not seen with the nursing group. We conclude that visual estimation is unreliable, and recommend against using visual estimation in clinical practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]