Injuries related to pets, exotic animals, and falconry in Qatar.

INTRODUCTION: Pets and exotic animals are increasingly popular all over the world. Some of these animals may cause injuries to their owners or other people during interactions. Both injuries and systemic infections always present diagnosis and treatment challenges. Emergency physicians´ clinical experience in managing patients with injuries caused by pets and exotic animals, in particular, is limited; hence, we believe that it is a domain to explore in a Middle Eastern country to help raise awareness and provide reminders as to the best evidence-based medical practice. METHODS: Hamad Medical Corporation's hospital records of patients treated between 2015 and 2022 were analyzed retrospectively. Cases whose diagnosis was recorded as injuries caused by animals kept as pets were included in the study. Patients were evaluated in terms of demographic characteristics, type of injury, injury locations, injury severity, treatments applied, and complications. Descriptive statistics were carried out, and findings were expressed as percentages in a frequency table. RESULTS: Following a search of the electronic patient records during the period of interest, 43 patients were found to have sought treatment following an injury caused by a pet or domestic exotic animal. The mean age of the patients was 23.5 years; about three-quarters were male, and approximately half were children. All injuries were minor, and 74.4% were skin abrasions. The most commonly injured body parts were the hand, the leg, and facial injuries. It was observed that cats caused 53.5% of the injuries, whereas falcons were involved in 11.6% of the cases. All patients were prescribed prophylactic antibiotics, and 60.5% were administered a tetanus injection. CONCLUSION: Despite our study spanning over seven years, a relatively low number of patients reported to the government hospitals´ emergency departments. The injuries are most commonly caused by cats and often involve children and animal bites to hands. The key recommendations are for parents or childminders to always supervise children when interacting with animals, be particularly cautious, and wear some form of protection when handling pets and domestic, exotic animals. Whether it is a bite or a scratch, healthcare professionals should always anticipate the potential risk of infection, treat the patient accordingly, and prescribe prophylactic antibiotics.

External Validation and Recalibration of the CURB-65 and PSI for Predicting 30-Day Mortality and Critical Care Intervention in Multiethnic Patients with COVID-19.

OBJECTIVES: To validate and recalibrate the CURB-65 and pneumonia severity index (PSI) in predicting 30-day mortality and critical care intervention (CCI) in a multiethnic population with COVID-19, along with evaluating both models in predicting CCI. METHODS: Retrospective data was collected for 1181 patients admitted to the largest hospital in Qatar with COVID-19 pneumonia. The area under the curve (AUC), calibration curves, and other metrics were bootstrapped to examine the performance of the models. Variables constituting the CURB-65 and PSI scores underwent further analysis using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) along with logistic regression to develop a model predicting CCI. Complex machine learning models were built for comparative analysis. RESULTS: The PSI performed better than CURB-65 in predicting 30-day mortality (AUC 0.83, 0.78 respectively), while CURB-65 outperformed PSI in predicting CCI (AUC 0.78, 0.70 respectively). The modified PSI/CURB-65 model (respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, hematocrit, age, sodium, and glucose) predicting CCI had excellent accuracy (AUC 0.823) and good calibration. CONCLUSIONS: Our study recalibrated, externally validated the PSI and CURB-65 for predicting 30-day mortality and CCI, and developed a model for predicting CCI. Our tool can potentially guide clinicians in Qatar to stratify patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.

Development of a Unique Organic Acid Solution for Removing Composite Field Scales.

Removal of oil field scales commonly requires low pH acid, which may cause many issues under downhole conditions. Because of the deposition of different scale types and the economic effect, there is a need to develop a remedial descaling fluid that can be effectively used to remove different types of scales at a different position in the well. This paper provides a new scale dissolver that is noncorrosive and has high scale dissolution performance for composite scales. This study shows a series of comprehensive experimental lab tests as scale characterization, equilibrium brine compositional analysis, fluid compatibility and stability, solubility test, precipitation tendency for the dissolved solids, corrosion test, and core flooding. The scale samples contain magnetite, kaolinite, calcium carbonate, and sulfate scales. The results showed that the dissolution rate was higher than 74% for composite field scale samples after 6 h at 70 °C, while the new dissolver completely dissolved the two samples at 100 °C after 5 h. The new dissolver outperformed the common commercial dissolver used in the oil and gas industry. The new dissolver has a pH of 9 and showed safe use regarding the precipitation of dissolved solids that can be produced during the scale treatment and a low corrosion rate of 0.063 kg/m2 at 6.9 MPa and 100 °C for 6 h. Also, the new dissolver was tested through core flooding for Indiana limestone and showed core permeability enhancement; the treatment with the new dissolver enhanced the core permeability from an initial value of 0.67 milliDarcy (mD) to record 1.29 mD.

Management of peri-implantitis using a diode laser (810 nm) vs conventional treatment: a systematic review.

The purpose of this study was to systematically assess clinical studies on the effect of using a diode laser in the treatment of peri-implantitis. Study question was "In patients with peri-implantitis around functional dental implants, can treatment by a diode Laser (810 nm) versus conventional treatment be effective in reducing the probing depth?". The study included only randomized controlled clinical trials that involved patients with peri-implantitis. Included articles evaluated a diode laser (810 nm) used as monotherapy or as adjuvant therapy in the non-surgical treatment while their control group received conventional methods of treatment for peri-implantitis. Studies that involved other types of laser treatment options, surgical therapy, photodynamic therapy, case series, or case reports were excluded. Three electronic databases were searched for published articles from 2010 to 2018: PubMed/Medline, Cochrane, and Web of Science. The references were manually hand searched for relevant articles. The search initially identified 44 studies, which were filtered to yield a total of 3 eligible studies. All included studies compared laser treatment by a diode laser (810 nm) to conventional therapy by mechanical debridement for a follow-up period ranging from 6 months to 1 year, and risk of bias was assessed for each of the three included studies. A qualitative analysis of the three studies was conducted. This systematic review could not support the usage of a diode laser in the treatment of peri-implantitis. To confirm this assumption, more clinical trials with long-term follow-up periods are recommended.

A framework for a competency based medical curriculum in saudi arabia.

BACKGROUND: We recently adopted a competency based curriculum based on the CanMEDs model. This shift required the cross-mapping of all key CanMEDs competencies with the competencies for higher education in Saudi Arabia as per the Saudi National Commission for Academic Accreditation & Assessment (NCAAA) guidelines. OBJECTIVES: To formulate competencies for our curriculum and to create a framework aligned with NCAAA, CanMEDs and Saudi Meds. METHODS: After finalization of program outcomes, the program goals were cross-mapped with CanMEDs and Saudi Meds competencies and then the CanMEDs competencies were reverse mapped with our outcomes. Finally benchmarking of outcomes with the programs of the Universities of Manitoba and Toronto was done. RESULTS: We were able to cross-map and match major outcomes of our program with both the CanMEDs and the Saudi Meds frameworks, ensuring that the outcomes are in line with NCAAA, CanMEDs and Saud Meds. Also, our program objectives were bench marked with two of the Canadian medical schools. CONCLUSION: We propose that our framework can be a model for other universities in Saudi Arabia to consider when shifting to a competency based curriculum.