Harvest of need: addressing health and safety challenges on North Carolina's farms

Agriculture is North Carolina's leading source of revenue and its most dangerous industry. This issue brief, along with the commentaries and sidebars in the associated policy forum, addresses the complexity of agricultural health and safety in North Carolina and concludes that the following activities are crucial to reducing the incidence of agricultural illness, injury, and death in the state: (1) positive promotion of safe and healthy farms, (2) increased funding for existing programs, (3) creation of a task force to develop a dedicated, comprehensive surveillance system for agricultural illness, injury, and fatality, (4) increased emphasis on and funding for training of health care professionals and emergency response personnel in agricultural health and safety, (5) funding to expand farm health and safety programs to all 100 counties, and (6) strong collaborations to further develop and strengthen a seamless, holistic system for addressing the state's agricultural health and safety needs.     

对当代社区护理的分析与探讨

社区护理将公共卫生学和护理学有效地结合在一起,既强调对疾病的预防,又强调对疾病的护理,最终达到促进和维护健康的目的。社区护理有着漫长的发展历史和鲜明的时代特点。为了全面提升社区护理的质量,必须解决好社区护理工作目前存在的主要矛盾和问题,重视健康宣传教育工作,不断加强对社区护理工作的管理,建立高水平的管理模式,规范护理操作标准,重视和加强社区护理人才的培养,拥有高素质的人才队伍。     

An update on pediatric endoscopy

Advances in endoscopy and anesthesia have enabled gastrointestinal endoscopy for children since 1960. Over the past decades, the number of endoscopies has increased rapidly. As specialized teams of pediatric gastroenterologists, pediatric intensive care physicians and pediatric endoscopy nurses are available in many medical centers, safe and effective procedures have been established. Therefore, diagnostic endoscopies in children are routine clinical procedures. The most frequently performed endoscopies are esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), colonoscopy and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreaticography (ERCP). Therapeutic interventions include variceal bleeding ligation, foreign body retrieval and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. New advances in pediatric endoscopy have led to more sensitive diagnostics of common pediatric gastrointestinal disorders, such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and celiac disease; likewise, new diseases, such as eosinophilic esophagitis, have been brought to light.Upcoming modalities, such as capsule endoscopy, double balloon enteroscopy and narrow band imaging, are being established and may contribute to diagnostics in pediatric gastroenterology in the future.     

An update on cardioembolic stroke

About one-fifth of all ischaemic strokes are cardioembolic. Recent years have seen considerable progress in our understanding of atrial fibrillation, the most important cause of cardioembolism, and evidence-based treatment strategies have emerged. Progress in relation to other cardioembolic disorders has been more limited and here stroke prevention strategies remain less certain and subject to debate. This article briefly reviews the methods currently used to identify and investigate cardioembolic stroke and then provides an update on stroke prevention in relation to atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, patent foramen ovale and left ventricular dysfunction (after myocardial infarction and chronic failure).