Statt Sterbehilfe Therapie zur Schmerzlinderung : die Grenzen der Ethik und der Wille der Patienten ; [Rezension]

Rezension zu: Stephan Sahm : Sterbebegleitung und Patientenverfügung. Ärztliches Handeln an den Grenzen von Ethik und Recht ; Verlag Campus, Frankfurt 2006, ISBN 9783593381794, 265 Seiten, 32,90 Euro

The Death Penalty in Georgia: Still Arbitrary

The United States Supreme Court has found death constitutional as a punishment for murder. In Gregg v. Georgia, the Court declared that capital punishment is not, by its very nature, cruel and unusual in violation of the eighth amendment. This Article focuses on the Georgia capital punishment system. The conclusions to be drawn from examination of the Georgia experience have broad application, however, because the Georgia system is typical of modem American capital punishment schemes. If the Georgia statute cannot avoid arbitrary and discriminatory imposition of death sentences, it is difficult to imagine a statute that could effectively perform that task. In Part I, this Article examines the Gregg Court\u27s assumption that safeguards built into the trial and appeal phase of a capital case insure against arbitrary and capricious application of the death penalty in Georgia. The Court in Gregg essentially dismissed the problems inherent in the prosecutor\u27s discretion to charge and the executive\u27s power to grant clemency. The Article will address the issues surrounding those stages in Parts II and III

Evidence-Based Protocols for Assessment and Treatment of Adolescent Suicide Risk in an Emergency Department

Suicide and suicide attempts are a frequently encountered clinical crisis and the assessment, management and treatment of suicidal patients is one of the most stressful tasks for clinicians (Fowler, 2012). The purpose of this project was to examine whether current assessment and treatment protocols followed in the ED, Mankato, adhere to best-­‐practices as identified through research, as well as to make recommendations to MCHS-­‐Mankato for future considerations and potential modifications to existing protocols

Evaluating the Performance of the U.S. Social Safety Net in the Great Recession

The following provides an assessment of the performance of both individual safety net programs and the cumulative impact of all safety net benefits and tax credits on household incomes in the early years during and following the 2007-09 recession. Specifically, I examine the extent to which various benefits and tax credits have moderated the impact of earnings losses for households in different positions in the income distribution, with special attention to the experiences of low-income households. In addition, I examine whether these moderating impacts differ for households of various racial/ethnic compositions, female-headed households, and residents of states with more and less accessible safety net programs. Overall, safety net programs have very significantly mitigated what would otherwise have been substantial, and in the case of lower income households, severe losses in income. This has been especially true for many working poor and lower middle class households who have benefited from their eligibility for a range of benefits and credits that are conditional on employment or earnings. However, heavy reliance on employment conditional benefits has reduced access to this income support for households with barriers to labor force participation, such as very poor female-headed households. In addition, across the income distribution non-white households have experienced both disproportionately large earnings losses and less receipt of compensating benefits and credits. Finally, the availability, accessibility, and generosity of benefits and credits varies so substantially across states that very poor households have experienced both the largest and the smallest declines in total household income depending on state of residence. In closing, I stress that many of the programs that have done the most to mitigate earnings losses were either temporary (tax credits) or exhaustible (Unemployment Insurance, TANF) and are not structured to accommodate a prolonged employment crisis such as that we are currently experiencing. Given the dramatic erosion of labor force participation among low-income households and the exhaustibility of the programs that have expanded the most since 2007, I expect the capacity of current safety net programs to mitigate income losses to falter substantially and potentially disastrously in coming years

Pooling of coronavirus tests under unknown prevalence

Diagnostic testing for the novel coronavirus is an important tool to fight the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. However, testing capacities are limited. A modified testing protocol, whereby a number of probes are 'pooled' (i.e. grouped), is known to increase the capacity for testing. Here, we model pooled testing with a double-average model, which we think to be close to reality for Covid-19 testing. The optimal pool size and the effect of test errors are considered. The results show that the best pool size is three to five, under reasonable assumptions. Pool testing even reduces the number of false positives in the absence of dilution effects

Voting to End Vulnerability: Understanding the Recent Proliferation of State-Level Child Sex Trafficking Legislation

This Article first focuses on the history of CSEC (commercially sexually exploited children) legislation in the United States by contextualizing the history of state anti-trafficking laws within the larger anti-trafficking policy framework of federal U.S. statutes and United Nations’ (U.N.) protocols. The second and third sections address the variables, statistical model, and results of our data analysis. The fourth section discusses the implications of these findings. The Article concludes with practical considerations for future CSEC legislative efforts on the state level

Evidence suggests that state legislators are working to restrict access to the vote in response to minority turnout

In the past two elections there has been a dramatic increase in the number of restrictive voting laws passed at the state level. Support for these laws tends to break along party lines, with Republicans claiming these laws are needed to defend against voter fraud, and Democrats arguing that it is actually a form of voter suppression. In their recent research, Keith Gunnar Bentele and Erin O’Brien show that these proposals tend to be introduced in battleground states after periods of increased voter turnout among minority and low-income groups and are passed more frequently under Republican-controlled state legislatures

Indications for hand and glove disinfection in Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support: a manikin simulation study

Background and aim There are no investigations on hand hygiene during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), even though these patients are at high risk for healthcare-associated infections. We aimed to evaluate the number of indicated hand hygiene per CPR case in general and the fraction that could be accomplished without delay for other life-saving techniques through standardized observations. Materials and methods In 2022, we conducted Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) courses over 4 days, practicing 33 ACLS case vignettes with standard measurements of chest compression fractions and hand hygiene indications. A total of nine healthcare workers (six nurses and three physicians) participated. Results A total of 33 training scenarios resulted in 613 indications for hand disinfection. Of these, 150 (24%) occurred before patient contact and 310 (51%) before aseptic activities. In 282 out of 310 (91%) indications, which have the highest impact on patient safety, the medication administrator was responsible; in 28 out of 310 (9%) indications, the airway manager was responsible. Depending on the scenario and assuming 15 s to be sufficient for alcoholic disinfection, 56–100% (mean 84.1%, SD ± 13.1%) of all indications could have been accomplished without delaying patient resuscitation. Percentages were lower for 30-s of exposure time. Conclusion To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the feasibility of hand hygiene in a manikin CPR study. Even if the feasibility is overestimated due to the study setup, the fundamental conclusion is that a relevant part of the WHO indications for hand disinfection can be implemented without compromising quality in acute care, thus increasing the overall quality of patient care