Course Review: Lessons Learned by MY Plastic Surgery Course 2022.

ABSTRACT: Plastic surgery is a surgical speciality, which typically receives little attention during medical school. Students and newly qualified doctors may therefore wish to develop skills and knowledge within the field of plastic surgery to mitigate a lack of undergraduate exposure. The MY Plastic Surgery Course-Essential Plastic Surgery Skills for Junior Doctors is a course aimed at this cohort; it is a 2-day course based in Yorkshire, organized by plastic surgeons, and covers a broad range of foundational skills in plastic surgery.We present an outline and assessment of the 2022 course, as well as discussing the extent to which it has improved and developed on feedback published in 2021.Overall, the authors found that this course was an excellent introduction to plastic surgery, and we recommend it to medical professionals interested in this surgical speciality.

Stenting versus stentless repair for bilateral choanal atresia: A systematic review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: Bilateral choanal atresia requires prompt surgical intervention. Surgeons have historically used stents in the repair process, however their efficacy has come into question in recent years. We performed a systematic review to investigate, primarily, whether stents enjoy more favourable outcomes compared to stentless repair. We also explored the use of operative adjuncts, such as steroids, antibiotics, mitomycin C and KTP laser. METHODS: We performed a search of the Medline and Embase databases using a search strategy developed with the assistance of an academic librarian. Only full peer reviewed articles were included. Abstracts, posters, case reports and proceedings of academic conferences were excluded. RESULTS: We identified 48 unique articles for inclusion, composed of a meta-analysis, two randomised control trials and 45 case series. Pooled analysis of the two randomised control trials yielded no statistically significant difference in choanal patency between stented and stentless repair, but a statistically significant reduction in complications, specifically granulation tissue formation, was found in stentless repair. Data from case series were, overall, of mixed quality, making factors contributing to successful outcomes difficult to elucidate. CONCLUSION: Overall, there is a lack of high quality evidence to support the use of either a stented or stentless approach to bilateral choanal atresia repair, however stentless repair may experience fewer complications. Operative techniques, such as the use of mucosal flaps, are worthy of future study. Authors call for future high quality randomised control trials to investigate this uncommon but important condition.

Pregnancy, cold water swimming and cortisol: The effect of cold water swimming on obstetric outcomes.

Cold water swimming is an activity which has received increased attention in recent years, with advertised benefits including improvements in mood, energy and exercise recovery. Cold water swimmers also report experiencing less stress in daily life, the health implications of which may be far-reaching. This may be of particular interest to expecting mothers, as we explore how stress may negatively impact upon birth outcomes. We present the hypothesis that women who regularly enjoy cold water swimming can expect to experience improved obstetric outcomes over those who do not; cold water swimming is a significant physiologically stressful event which may, on habitual exposure, attenuate the stress response, leading to a reduction in negative birth outcomes.

Some Scars Do Not Run Deep: The Qualitative and Quantitative Nature of Neonatal Seldinger Pigtail Chest Drain Scars.

Pneumothorax is a complication of respiratory distress syndrome, of which many preterm babies suffer. If significant, these pneumothoraces can be treated by the insertion of a chest drain. There are a number of different types of chest drain, and techniques of insertion. This study aims to establish both the quantitative nature, and emotional significance of neonatal pigtail chest drain scarring, as inserted via the Seldinger technique. Parents were interviewed by telephone and asked to send photographs of their child's scar to be graded. Researchers found that, on the whole, the scar size and severity was not significant, and that those interviewed generally agreed that while the scar served as a reminder of a traumatic time, its size was unimportant. These results may inform future practice on a basis of chest drain comparison; results imply that chest drains with the greatest efficacy should be used.