CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal articles from May 2009

CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal archives from May 2009

Explaining pragmatic trials to pragmatic policy-makers.(Commentary)
May 12, 2009... Successful policy-makers value pragmatism. As politics is "the art of the possible," pragmatism is the art of the practical and workable. It entails getting more results sooner through flexibility rather than slavish adherence to rigid...

Clinical trial registries becoming a reality, but long-term effects remain uncertain.(News)
May 12, 2009... Advocates for clinical trial registration have in recent years gained several formidable allies, including editors of high-profile medical journals and the United States government, but some warn that publishing incentives and...

Claim and counterclaim.(For the record)
May 12, 2009... Canadian Medical Association past president Dr. Brian Day and other owners of British Columbia private medical clinics have launched a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge against the provincial government's prohibition against...

Wait time reductions.(For the record)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Canadian hospitals have made significant strides in shortening wait times and improving patient flow, according to a report from the Association of Canadian Academic Healthcare Organizations. Those strides have been achieved through better...

Incidentalomas.(News)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... A lack of regulation has allowed some private medical clinics to flog medical imaging (magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography and positron emission tomography) tests and screening procedures that put some Canadians at unnecessary risk...

"Anti-defamation" group seeks to tame the rambunctious world of online doctor reviews.(News)
May 12, 2009... Things can get a little ugly at the intersection of medicine and the wild, wild Web. The opinions are unvarnished, the nerves raw and the spelling, well, at times atrocious--at boisterous online sites where patients rate their doctors. ...

Pay per view.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Pay per view: Free online access to the United States National Institutes of Health-funded research findings is on the chopping block as a result of legislation reintroduced in Congress on Feb. 3 prohibiting any federal agency from "asserting...

Industry symposia.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Industry symposia: The American Psychiatric Association has voted to phase out industry-sponsored educational sessions, advertising and meals at its annual conferences. As many as 50 sessions per conference have often been sponsored to the tune...

Sever ties.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Sever ties: Professional medical associations should severely limit pharmaceutical industry financial support for continuing medical education, the Journal of the American Medical Association urges in an article coauthored by editor Dr....

Mobility.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Mobility: The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and the College des medecins du Quebec have reached an agreement that will ease physician mobility between the 2 provinces, provided the doctors "hold a regular permit to practise...

Geriatrics.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Geriatrics: The Canadian Association of Retired Persons has established a scholarship fund to help students train to become geriatric nurses and doctors. The association aims to provide a 1-year scholarship for as many as 12 individuals,...

The legal take.(Briefly)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... The legal take: The United Kingdom's National Health Service shelled out roughly 134 million [euro] for legal costs in 2007/08, as compared with the roughly 264 million [euro] in damage payments that it made during the year to resolve 6212...

Oversight.(News)
May 12, 2009... Oversight: The regulatory faults within the United States food chain became painfully apparent during the recent contaminated peanut paste outbreak.--Patricia Sue Guthrie, Seattle, Washington, USA

Roving.(News)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... Roving: Mobile hospitals are among measures being adopted by state governments in India in response to a staggering shortage of doctors and other health workers--Natalie Alcoba, Yarragandlapalli, India [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Tuberculosis.(News)(Brief article)
May 12, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tuberculosis: The World Health Organization says that without measures to contain new drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, the disease will soon spiral out of control.--Ann Silversides, CMAJ

Dispatch.(News)
May 12, 2009... Dispatch: A Kingston, Ontario, physician reflects on casualties as he returns from a stint in Afghanistan.--Jorge Enrique Zamora MD, Khandahar, Afghanistan DOI:10.1503/cmaj.090651

Control of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the office and clinic.(Report)
May 12, 2009... Key points * Hand hygiene and judicious use of antibiotics are essential for infection control. * Patients should use an alcohol-based hand rub on arrival in the office or clinic. * Health care workers should use an alcohol-based...

Broken heart syndrome: tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy.(Report)
May 12, 2009... Key points * Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy should be considered in patients who have evidence of acute coronary syndrome but normal coronary arteries on angiography. * Left ventriculography is useful to show the classic findings of left...

An elderly woman with an age-old disease.(Clinical images)(Report)
May 12, 2009... [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] A 104-year-old woman with a 30-year history of gout and hypertension presented for evaluation. Her gout had been treated for many years with allopurinol, and her hypertension was managed with enalapril. She had not taken...

Readers respond to articles about health care in Gaza.(Letters)(Editorial)
May 12, 2009... CMAJ has every right to publish on matters medical from around the world. In fact, it is one of the Journal's duties. However, when the Journal covers a controversial issue, especially one with strong political overtones, it is clear that...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction notice)
May 12, 2009... In a recent article on the efficacy of pneumococcal vaccination in adults, (1) the second sentence of the Contributors statement at the end of the article should have read "Anke Huss and Pippa Scott contributed equally to the paper, completed...

Nip/Tuck well past its best before.(Theater review)
May 12, 2009... Here we go again. More extreme comedy about mastopexy, blepharoplasty and rhytidectomy, about those who perform them and those upon whom they are performed. In the resolution of a midseason cliffhanger, plastic surgeon Sean McNamara (Dylan...

Support for practising--and researching--bioethics.(Book review)
May 12, 2009... The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics Peter A. Singer and A.M. Viens, editors Cambridge University Press; 2008. 538 pp US$67.50 The task of a textbook reviewer may not have changed much since 1892, when Canadian physician...

The choking game.(Creative works)(Poem)
May 12, 2009... The choking game Stooped over his featherweight form One of the crowd Rhythmically compresses the naked chest As I stand in the doorway Watching and thinking... Something is terribly wrong ...

Coping with public health 2.0.(Salon)(Report)
May 12, 2009... The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom.... In fewer than 4000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population.... What we all failed...

Taiwan, China and the WHO: of pandas and pandemics/Taiwan, la Chine et l'OMS : pandas et pandemies.(World Health Organization)(Editorial)
May 12, 2009... The People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) have much in common, including a regrettably intractable debate about whether they are 1 country or 2. The debate is barren and dangerous as far as public health goes--disease...

The challenge of obesity treatment: avoiding weight regain.(Commentary)(Report)
May 12, 2009... Key points * Avoiding weight regain is a challenge for many patients. * Continued contact with a health care provider after weight loss is beneficial. * Behavioural factors are associated with sustained weight loss. * Exercise...

What kind of randomized trials do we need?(Commentary)
May 12, 2009... In 1967, Daniel Schwartz and Joseph Lellouch, 2 French statisticians, and their British colleague and translator Michael Healy wrote "[M]ost therapeutic trials are inadequately formulated, and this from the earliest stages of their conception."...

Salmonella outbreak prompts demands for more scrutiny of food processing plants.(News)
May 12, 2009... By the time Cheri Markos received a letter from Kellogg's warning her not to eat the peanut butter sandwich crackers she'd purchased at Costco, the snacks were long gone. She'd already eaten them or given them away to friends. "I assumed...

Hitting the road to alleviate India's rural doctor shortage.(News)(Report)
May 12, 2009... In the shade of a blooming neem tree, revered in India for its healing properties, 50-year-old Ramala Marrama waits for relief. She holds her head with both hands, grimacing as she grabs her stomach, then points to her back--here is where...

World must respond to threat of drug-resistant tuberculosis.(News)(Conference news)
May 12, 2009... The spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), deemed a "time bomb" by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), has led more than 30 nations to commit to a series of prevention and control measures. WHO Director General Dr....

Homeward bound.(Dispatch from the medical front)(Column)
May 12, 2009... We board the Hercules for the long journey home and taxi down the runway. As I reflect on a month that seems as if it has only just begun, countless memories and images begin flooding my consciousness. Was it only 2 weeks ago that the...

Determining optimal approaches for weight maintenance: a randomized controlled trial.(Research)(Report)
May 12, 2009... Increasing rates of overweight and obesity and the comorbidities associated with excess adiposity have been reported in affluent and developing countries worldwide. (1,2) Many different dietary and exercise regimens have been shown to be...

A pragmatic-explanatory continuum indicator summary (PRECIS): a tool to help trial designers.(Analysis)
May 12, 2009... Randomized trials have traditionally been broadly categorized as either an effectiveness trial or an efficacy trial, although we prefer the terms "pragmatic" and "explanatory." Schwartz and Lellouch described these 2 approaches toward clinical...