This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Barry L. Hainer, MD
Medical University of South Carolina Charleston

Frank H. Lawler, MD
East Carolina University School of Medicine Greenville, NC

JAMA. 1989;261(2):243-244.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

We appreciate the interest in our article by Carlson et al. Interns in several specialties were available on a continuous basis in the intensive care units (ICUs) studied. Second- or third-year internal medicine residents had duties outside the ICU, particularly during nights, weekends, or holidays. It is not correct to assume that all procedures or minute-to-minute direction of therapy was provided by house officers, and we addressed this issue in our discussion. We acknowledge this area as being important for comparison of care offered by the attending physicians and one that cannot be fully clarified without repeating a study at a site without house officers. Even at such a site, one might argue that minute-to-minute management of care by competent critical care nurses would obscure differences in care provided by attending physicians not continuously on-site.

The studies cited that purportedly demonstrate that continuous on-site physician staffing in ICUs . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?