Adolescent with occluded left main coronary artery.

Here we report unexpected findings in a 17-year-old female patient referred for coronary angiography and percutaneous intervention. During the angiography we observed a complete occlusion of the left main coronary artery (LMCA). The occurrence of coronary abnormalities at this age is extremely rare and mostly caused by congenital abnormalities. The diagnosis of premature atherosclerosis at this age is unlikely unless the patient suffers from severe lipoprotein disease. Here we describe a rare case of LMCA occlusion, the most likely cause of the disease and the potential implications for therapy.

How health professionals react to their own commission of serious medication errors.

It is our intention to learn about how health professionals react to commission of a serious error and learn more about how these situations are handled, in a supervisory sense, by hospital officials. From the information collected, we hope to be able to profile the people who are most likely to make serious errors, learn more about the environment for such disasters, and finally, establish a list of recommendations for supervisory personnel to use in handling the employee making a serious error.