A 70 kg, previously healthy, 28-year-old primigravida was admitted to our delivery ward at 36 weeks of gestation. The patient was suffering from severe preeclampia with H.E.L.L.P (hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets count) syndrome. She was treated with magnesium sulfate 4 g bolus followed by 2 g/h continuous infusion (her magnesium plasma levels were 5-6 mg%) and hydralazine but, since her clinical status was worsening (severe hypertension and decreasing platelets count from 80,000 to 40,000/µL), an urgent Caesarean delivery was planned. In view of the low platelet count it was decided to perform general anesthesia using a rapid-sequence induction with propofol 3 mg/kg and succinylcholine 1.5 mg/kg. Standard anesthetic monitoring included a nerve stimulator (TOF-Watch SX, Organon- Technika Boxtel, the Netherlands) with the active electrode attached over the ulnar nerve. Anesthesia was maintained with 1-2% isoflurane in a mixture of 50% oxygen/nitrous oxide. Fentanyl 100 mcg was administered after the baby was delivered and the umbilical cord was clamped. [More]

Although doctors, in the Hippocratic oath, give faith both to goddesses Hygeia (the goddess of health and prevention) and Panacea (goddess of healing), in practice they give a preferential attention to healing. Thousands of years ago the Chinese, appreciating the advantages of disease prevention, did not pay doctors until they would apply profilactic measures efficiently [1]. In the Middle Ages, profilactic measures addressed to collectivities, through vaccination of the population against contagious epidemics (smallpox, cholera, etc.) In modern times, the shift of pathology towards chronic diseases (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes), changes the direction of preventive measures from collective prevention to individual prevention. In 1983, in the US, individual preventive measures were merged with collective preventive measures, in a specialty called “Preventive Medicine and Public Health”[2].
In Romania, preventive communities belong to “Public Health and Health Management”. Individual preventive measures are carried out especially by family physicians and episodically, ambulatory physicians.
In the following we present our observations regarding preventive medicine.[More]

Pain is ”an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” [2]; it is a common problem, not only for patients, but also for the medical world.
Nociceptive pain has a protective role, a signal role, but if the lesions that caused it persist and are excessive, pain becomes a disease (neuropathic pain).
The partial failure of integrated treatment methods, especially in the case of chronic diseases, determined scientists to turn their attention towards the genetic conditioning of individual pain perception and the effectiveness or adverse reactions of painkillers or neuroleptic medication.
The financial aspect of treating pais is also of great importance: there are immense sums of money spent annually to treat pain: 150 billion USD in the USA, and 200 billion EUR in Europe [3]. Other pain-related aspects, such as depression (22%) and the loss of jobs (25%) also have to be considered [3].[More]