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Increasing the number of vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) deliveries is one strategy to reduce the cesarean rate in the United States. Despite evidence of its safety, access to trial of labor after cesarean (TOLAC) and VBAC are limited by many clinical and non-clinical factors. We used a scoping review methodology to identify barriers to access of TOLAC and VBAC in the United States and extract potential leverage points from the literature. We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and CINAHL for peer-reviewed, English-language studies published after 1990, focusing on access to TOLAC and/or VBAC in the United States. Themes and potential leverage points were mapped onto the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Framework. The search yielded 21 peer-reviewed papers. Barriers varied across levels of influence and included factors related to restrictive clinical guidelines, provider reluctance, geographic disparities, and midwifery scopes of practice. While barriers varied in levels of influence, the majority were related to systemic and interpersonal factors. Barriers to TOLAC and VBAC exist at many levels and are both clinical and non-clinical in nature. The existing body of literature can benefit from more research examining the impact of recent revisions to clinical guidelines related to VBAC as well as additional qualitative studies to more deeply understand the complexity of provider reluctance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathogenic Acinetobacter species, most notably Acinetobacter baumannii, are a significant cause of healthcare‐associated infections worldwide. Acinetobacter infections are of particular concern to global health due to the high rates of multidrug resistance and extensive drug resistance. Widespread genome sequencing and analysis has determined that bacterial antibiotic resistance is often acquired and disseminated through the movement of mobile genetic elements, including insertion sequences (IS), transposons, integrons, and conjugative plasmids. In Acinetobacter specifically, resistance to carbapenems and cephalosporins is highly correlated with IS, as many ISAba elements encode strong outwardly facing promoters that are required for sufficient expression of β‐lactamases to confer clinical resistance. Here, we review the role of mobile genetic elements in antibiotic resistance in Acinetobacter species through the framework of the mechanism of resistance acquisition and with a focus on experimentally validated mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Ballistic injuries to the temporal bone are uncommon but devastating injuries that damage critical neurovascular structures. This review describes outcomes after ballistic injuries to the temporal bone and offers initiatives for standardized high-quality future research.Data Sources: A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane.Review Methods: Studies in the review included adults who experienced temporal bone fractures due to gunshot wounds and survived longer than 48 hours. Individual case reports were excluded. The various searches returned 139 results, of which 6 met inclusion criteria.Results: Most of the included studies are case series with low-level evidence that report a wide range of outcomes and follow-up. Outcomes include demographic patient information, audiologic outcomes, vascular injuries, intracranial complications, facial nerve function, and surgical indications.Conclusion: This review is the first to characterize the nature and progression of patients who experienced gunshot wounds to the temporal bone. Although all patients share an etiology of injury, they often have vastly different hospital courses and outcomes. This review provides a basis for future studies to guide care for these injuries, as most of the existing literature includes small dated case series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the heart of the unparalleled crisis of COVID-19, healthcare workers (HCWs) face several challenges treating patients with COVID-19: reducing the spread of infection; developing suitable short-term strategies; and formulating long-term plans. The psychological burden and overall wellness of HCWs has received heightened awareness in news and research publications. The purpose of this study was to provide a review on current publications measuring the effects of COVID-19 on wellness of healthcare providers to inform interventional strategies. Between April 6–May 17, 2020, we conducted systematic searches using combinations of these keywords and synonyms in conjunction with the controlled vocabulary of the database: “physician,” “wellness, “wellbeing,” “stress,” “burnout,” “COVID-19,” and “SARS-CoV-2.” We excluded articles without original data, research studies regarding the wellness of non-healthcare occupations or the general public exclusively, other outbreaks, or wellness as an epidemic. A total of 37 studies were included in this review. The review of literature revealed consistent reports of stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in HCWs as a result of COVID-19. We describe published data on HCW distress and burnout but urge future research on strategies to enhance HCW well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The University of Louisville School of Medicine is the pilot site for the eQuality project, an initiative to integrate training for providing care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients into the standard medical school curriculum. Inspired by and in support of this School of Medicine initiative, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library staff have developing our own initiative. Because of past and current lack of competent provider training and the resulting need for patients to be knowledgeable self-advocates, however, our initiative was broadened to include the goal of providing LGBT individuals in our communities--both on campus and in the broader public--with the resources and tools that they need to access information about their own health. Case Presentation: This paper describes the development of that twofold initiative and the tangible methods used in its implementation, including collection development, interdepartmental collaboration, electronic resource guide creation, and community engagement through outreach. Conclusions: Outcomes of the initiative to date will also be discussed, along with plans for further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transition of content management systems provided Kornhauser Health Sciences Library with an opportunity to redesign the library's website to be more user-friendly, efficient, and visually appealing. A multistage approach was taken: (1) informal interviews of various stakeholders from the library, (2) a redesign using information gained from those stakeholders, and (3) a retrospective comparative usability study. This study was conducted with the goal to inform library staff whether the redesigned website improved accuracy and efficiency of information retrieval through the completion of timed tasks. In addition, user satisfaction was measured through guided interview questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Malpractice in emergency medicine is of high concern for medical providers, the fear of which continues to drive decision-making. The body of evidence evaluating risk specific to emergency physicians is disjointed, and thus it remains difficult to derive cohesive themes and strategies for risk minimization.Objective: This review evaluates the state of malpractice in emergency medicine and summarizes a concise approach for the emergency physician to minimize risk.Discussion: The environment of the emergency department (ED) represents moderate overall malpractice risk and yields a heavy burden in finance and time. Key areas of relatively high litigation occurrence include missed acute myocardial infarction, missed fractures/foreign bodies, abdominal pain/appendicitis, wounds, intracranial bleeding, aortic aneurysm, and pediatric meningitis. Mitigation of risk is best accomplished through constructive communication, intelligent documentation, utilization of clinical practice guidelines and generalizable diagnoses, careful management of discharge against medical advice, and establishing follow-up for diagnostic studies ordered while in the ED (especially x-ray studies). Communication breakdown seems to be more predictive of malpractice litigation than injury experienced.Conclusions: There are consistent diagnoses that are associated with increased litigation incidence. A combination of mitigation approaches may assist providers in mitigation of malpractice risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review attempts to retrieve and report the findings of postmortem studies including the histopathologic data of deceased coronavirus disease 2019 patients and to review the manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019-associated thrombotic pathologies reported in the recent literature., Data Sources: PubMed, Excerpta Medica Database, and Cochrane library between December 1, 2019, and August 26, 2020., Study Selection: Investigators screened 360 unique references, retrieved published autopsy series, and report on the postmortem histopathologic information on patients who had died of coronavirus disease 2019., Data Extraction: Investigators independently abstracted all available data including study design, participant demographics, key histopathologic findings, disease severity markers, duration of hospital stay, and cause of death., Data Synthesis: From the 65 eligible studies, 691 total completed autopsies were included in evidence synthesis. Histopathologic evaluation of the lungs revealed presence of diffuse alveolar damage in 323 of 443 patients and pulmonary microthrombi in 242 of 326 patients. Deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism were found in 41% and ~15%, respectively, of the cadavers examined for thromboembolic events. d-dimer levels were generally higher in patients with severe clinical course of coronavirus disease 2019. Plasma levels of ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase, interleukin-6, and C-reactive protein were higher in nonsurvivors when compared with survivors. Overall, microthrombi and extensive angiogenesis of lung vasculature were the most common pathologic findings in the lungs and microthrombi in most of the assessed organ-tissue., Conclusions: Diffuse alveolar damage was the most predominant feature in the lungs of coronavirus disease 2019 patients who underwent postmortem assessment. Widespread pulmonary microthrombosis and extensive pulmonary angiogenesis, in addition to frequent pulmonary and extrapulmonary microthrombotic and thromboembolic findings in patients with coronavirus disease 2019, appear to be consistent with the disease-specific hypercoagulability. Further discovery efforts in assessing the link between coronavirus disease 2019, hypercoagulable state, and immunothrombosis are warranted. In the interim, increased attention to anticoagulant treatment approaches in coronavirus disease 2019 patients is needed., Competing Interests: The authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.)