Canadian Journal of Surgery articles from August 2006

Canadian Journal of Surgery archives from August 2006

Physician shortage/La penurie de medecins.(Editorial)
August 1, 2006... The growing shortage of physicians in Canada is a matter of public record. Over the past several years, physician groups have been lamenting the decline in the numbers of medical school graduates and postgraduate training positions and the lack...

The concept and trajectory of "operative competence" in surgical training.(Quill on Scalpel/Plume et Scalpel)(Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada's CanMEDS 2000 Project)
August 1, 2006... The terminal objective of surgical training is to produce competent surgeons capable of meeting the health care needs of our society. Recently, several accrediting medical bodies in North America proposed a framework of essential competencies...

Value of preoperative serum CA 19-9 levels in predicting resectability for pancreatic cancer.
August 1, 2006... Background: Pancreatic cancer carries a poor prognosis; at operation approximately 25% of patients will be found to have unresectable tumours even though CT has demonstrated that they are resectable. At our tertiary care centre, we wished to...

High tibial osteotomy with use of the Taylor Spatial Frame external fixator for osteoarthritis of the knee.
August 1, 2006... Background: High tibial osteotomy (HTO) is used to treat medial compartment osteoarthritis of the knee in active patients with varus alignment. In this study we review the clinical and radiographic outcomes associated with the Taylor Spatial...

Influence of hospital characteristics on operative death and survival of patients after major cancer surgery in Ontario.
August 1, 2006... Background: There is a lack of information from Canadian hospitals on the role of hospital characteristics such as procedure volume and teaching status on the survival of patients who undergo major cancer resection. Therefore, we chose to study...

Core competencies in surgery: evaluating the goals of urology residency training in Canada.(Survey)
August 1, 2006... Background: In Canada and the United States, the relevance and utility of training objectives as perceived by practising surgeons is rarely examined. We sought to determine if urology residency training objectives reflect the broad realities of...

Treatment of esophageal achalasia with Heller myotomy: retrospective evaluation of patient satisfaction and disease-specific quality of life.
August 1, 2006... Background: Prospective randomized studies have suggested that surgery palliates esophageal achalasia more effectively than pneumatic dilatation, but for some dilatation is still the procedure of choice for initial treatment. We decided to...

Pediatric burns: the forgotten trauma of childhood.(Trauma and Critical Care/Traumatologie et soins critiques)
August 1, 2006... A burn is an injury caused by thermal energy or by chemical or physical agents having a similar effect to heating or cooling. A deep burn may be defined as one that has not healed within 12 days and represents either a deep partial-thickness or...

Wilfred Trotter: surgeon, philosopher.(Surgical Cornucopia/Pot-pourri)(Biography)
August 1, 2006... There is no significant biography that records the accomplishments of Sir Wilfred Trotter, who was a general surgeon in its pure sense at a time when surgical specialization was in its infancy. Trotter was born in the 1870s in England. Despite...

Surgical images: musculoskeletal: elbow mass in a 58-year-old woman.(Continuing Medical Education/Formation medicale contine)
August 1, 2006... A 58-year-old woman presented to a trauma clinic after a fall. She complained of tingling in the ulnar nerve distribution of her dominant arm. A mass about the elbow, which had been previously identified, seemed to have recently increased in...

Radiology for the surgeon: musculoskeletal case 37.(Continuing Medical Education/Formation medicale continue)
August 1, 2006... Presentation A 42-year-old man was playing football when he noticed pain in the left thigh after a twisting motion. The pain failed to resolve with the usual soft-tissue injury regimen, so he approached his family physician who ordered...

Surgical images: soft tissue: reccurent deep vein thrombosis caused by hypoplasia of the inferior vena cava.(Continuing Medical Education/Formation medicale continue)
August 1, 2006... A 62-year-old man had relapsing episodes of deep vein thrombosis of the lower extremities. The first episode had occurred almost 40 years earlier, followed by at least 7 similar episodes. He was taking anticoagulants orally. He had no other...

Gastrointestinal stromal tumour: varied presentation of a rare disease.(Brief communication/Communication abregee)
August 1, 2006... Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GISTs) are rare sarcomas associated with the c-kit proto-oncogene. Because of the rarity of GISTs, and because until recently it was difficult to distinguish these tumours from other gastrointestinal...

Scapholunate interosseus ligament tears in elite gymnasts.(Brief Communication/Communication abregee)
August 1, 2006... Gymnastics requires conversion of the upper limb into a load-bearing extremity, leading to upper extremity, especially wrist, injuries. The "gymnast's wrist" or the Madelung-like deformity involves repetitive excessive loading of immature bones...

Cystic lymphangioma of the lesser sac.(Case Note/Note de cas)
August 1, 2006... Cystic lymphangioma is a benign tumour most frequently found in the head and neck and rarely in the abdominal cavity. We report a case of cystic lymphangioma of the lesser sac (omental bursa). Case report A 44-year-old woman was...