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Calls for schools to "improve" are everywhere, but recently calls for schools to "transform" have proliferated, based on the idea that schools are not simply underperforming but outdated if not obsolete. Most prominently, scholars and authors such as Phillip Schlechty, Peter Senge, and Francis Duffy have targeted school and school system leaders with books calling for whole-system or systemic change to make schools compatible with other information-age social systems. Gradually, schools and school systems are undertaking the challenges necessary to create schools that reflect the modern needs. This article profiles ten such schools and school districts to get excited about now--in the information age. These include: (1) Garden City Community School--Garden City, Idaho; (2) Chesapeake Public Charter School--Lexington Park, Maryland; (3) New Technology High School--Napa, California; (4) Halau Lokahi Public Charter School--Honolulu; (5) Great Expectations School--Grand Marais, Minnesota; (6) Cyber High School--based in Fresno, California; (7) Charles Dickens School--Vancouver, British Columbia; (8) Decatur Central High School--Indianapolis; (9) Minneapolis Public High Schools--Minneapolis; and (10) Chugach School District--Alaska. These ten schools and school districts exhibit many of the information-age features one would expect to find based upon changes in society and in other social systems. (Contains 1 table and 14 notes.)

Background and Objective: Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is a frequent and unpleasant experience that may increase postoperative complications and costs. For surgical procedures with a high risk of PONV, prevention is preferable to treatment. In this study, the authors explore the dose-response relationship between granisetron administered just prior to the end of surgery and post-operative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing abdominal hysterectomy., Methods: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, pilot study of post-operative nausea and vomiting prevention. Patients undergoing elective open abdominal hysterectomy requiring general anaesthesia received a single dose of granisetron 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 mg or placebo administered approximately 15 min prior to the end of surgery. The primary efficacy end-point was the proportion of patients with no vomiting in the 0--6 h interval following medication administration. No inferential statistics were planned., Results: The proportion of patients with no vomiting episode in the 0--6 h interval after administration of study medication was higher in each granisetron treatment group (>90%) than in the placebo group (77%). Proportions of patients with no vomiting episodes in the 0--24 h interval were similar across treatment groups. Results of analyses of proportions of patients with no moderate or severe nausea episodes, proportions of those requiring rescue medication and times to first use of rescue medication suggested a treatment effect of granisetron relative to placebo in both the 0--6 and 0--24 h intervals. Similar proportions of patients in each treatment group reported at least one adverse event., Conclusions: Granisetron at doses of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mg administered just prior to the end of surgery suggested a trend of improved efficacy compared to placebo in preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting in the first 6 h after abdominal hysterectomy. This pilot study did not identify a dose-response relationship.

This is a case of acute spontaneous thoracic epidural hematoma in a laboring patient at term who presented with severe preeclampsia and acute spinal cord compression, paraplegia, and sensory loss below T8. In early labor, at home, the patient experienced sudden lumbar back pain that progressed to mid-scapular pain leading to paraplegia and T8 sensory loss within one hour of onset of pain. Her symptoms were caused by a spontaneous thoracic epidural hematoma. Upon arrival at the first hospital, the correct presumptive diagnosis was made in the emergency room, magnesium sulfate was administered, and the patient was transferred to our medical center. Her hypertension was not treated despite severe preeclampsia in order to maintain spinal cord perfusion pressure. Following cesarean section under general anesthesia, thoracic laminectomy was performed and an epidural hematoma compressing the spinal cord to 2-3 mm was evacuated 13 h after the onset of symptoms. After approximately three months of paraplegia, five months with quad-walker and cane use, the patient can now walk with a cane or other minimal support but has remaining bowel and bladder problems. The conflicting anesthetic management objectives of severe preeclampsia and acute paraplegia secondary to spinal epidural hematoma required compromise in the management of her preeclampsia in order to preserve spinal cord perfusion.

Background: Blood loss leading to reduced oxygen-carrying capacity is usually treated with red blood cell transfusions. This study examined the hypothesis that a hemoglobin-based oxygen-carrying solution can serve as an initial alternative to red blood cell transfusion., Methods: In a randomized, double-blind efficacy trial of HBOC-201, a total of 98 patients undergoing cardiac surgery and requiring transfusion were randomly assigned to receive either red blood cell units or HBOC-201 (Hemopure; Biopure Corporation, Cambridge, Mass) for the first three postoperative transfusions. Patients were monitored before and after transfusion, at discharge, and at 3 to 4 weeks after the operation for subsequent red blood cell use, hemodynamics, and clinical laboratory parameters., Results: The use of HBOC-201 eliminated the need for red blood cell transfusions in 34% of cases (95% confidence interval 21%-49%). Patients in the HBOC group received a mean of 1.72 subsequent units of red blood cells; those who received red blood cells only received a mean of 2.19 subsequent units (P =.05). Hematocrit values were transiently lower in the HBOC group but were similar in the two groups at discharge and follow-up. Oxygen extraction was greater in the HBOC group (P =.05). Mean increases in blood pressure were greater in the HBOC group, but not significantly so., Conclusion: HBOC-201 may be an initial alternative to red blood cell transfusions for patients with moderate anemia after cardiac surgery. In a third of cases, HBOC-201 eliminated the need for red blood cell transfusion, although substantial doses were needed to produce this modest degree of blood conservation.

With increased attention to the causes and effects of neurologic injury related to cardiopulmonary bypass anesthesia and surgery, multiple modality examination and monitoring of cerebral function and perfusion in the perioperative period may prove to be advantageous. Transcranial Doppler examination and monitoring is inexpensive, noninvasive, safe, provides unique information about the functional status of the intracranial circulation, and complements the duplex Doppler study of the extracranial carotid vessels of the neck for preoperative evaluation of the surgical patient. The transcranial Doppler examination permits quantitation of blood flow velocity of the intracranial vessels, evaluation of autoregulatory capacity and vasomotor reserve, determination of symmetry of flow velocity in the circle of Willis, assessment of collateral circulatory capacity, examination of vessels not accessible to the duplex Doppler and serves as a baseline for intraoperative monitoring and the postoperative examination. Noninvasive, unilateral or bilateral, continuous monitoring of brain blood flow velocity intraoperatively or postoperatively with trending, storage, and correlation with other physiologic variables provides evidence of cerebral perfusion, occurrence and rate of cerebral embolism, and continuous monitoring of therapeutic interventions. A review of the incidence of stroke and neuropsychologic deficit after bypass surgery is focused on parameters amenable to diagnosis using transcranial Doppler. Patient-specific risk factors for neurologic injury derived from previous studies are discussed as well as risk factors that are related to anesthetic and surgical management and equipment. A description of Doppler technology and the correlation of transcranial Doppler findings with angiography and radionucleotide scans establishes the accuracy of the Doppler examination. The preoperative examination, provocative tests of vasomotor reserve, the evaluation of cerebral collateral circulation, and examples of Doppler applications are discussed.

This study examines the effects of acute hypocapnia, instituted prior to reperfusion of the graft liver, on the middle cerebral artery (MCA) Doppler blood flow velocity response to reperfusion during orthotopic liver transplantation in humans. Seventeen patients with chronic liver disease underwent continuous, noninvasive Doppler imaging of the MCA. Hyperventilation to an end-tidal Pco2 of 25 +/- 1 mm Hg was associated with a decrease in mean MCA flow velocity (FVm) from 51.6 +/- 5.7 to 37.0 +/- 3.3 cm/s (P < 0.05). After reperfusion, the Paco2 increased from 32 +/- 1 to 40 +/- 1 mm Hg (P < 0.05), mean arterial pressure (MAP) decreased from 76 +/- 3 to 60 +/- 2 mm Hg, and the FVm increased from 37.0 +/- 3.3 to 54.0 +/- 4.7 cm/s (P < 0.05). FVm increased postreperfusion despite prior hyperventilation, decreased MAP, and abrupt increases in central venous and pulmonary artery pressure, but FVm did not exceed the prereperfusion level. In 10 of the 17 patients, the baseline FVm versus Paco2 response slopes and Paco2 measured postreperfusion were used to predict the FVm response to Paco2 after reperfusion. The slopes were similar to those reported for anesthetized patients without liver disease. Predicted FVm exceeded measured FVm in 9 of the 10 patients. We conclude that mild hyperventilation prior to reperfusion of the graft liver prevents FVm increases above prereperfusion baseline level.

The determination of the viability of OLT grafts has relied upon metabolic tests of the liver, which take several hours to evaluate and therefore are only conclusive in most patients well into the postoperative period. Earlier diagnosis of graft failure or nonfunction would allow intraoperative reassessment of surgical technique and, in the case of graft failure, earlier planning for retransplantation. Since gastrointestinal mucosal ischemia is one of the earliest manifestations of impaired core tissue in the critically ill, a tonometric nasogastric tube (Tonomitor) was used in our patients to measure intramucosal gastric pH (pHi) during the preanhepatic (stage I), anhepatic (stage II), and neohepatic (stage III) phases of OLT in 35 patients as an indicator of graft liver function and viability. Based on the results of the pHi measurement 30 min after reperfusion during stage III, patients were divided into 2 groups using a pHi of 7.30 as the dividing point. Patients with a pHi equal or higher than 7.30 were assigned to group 1 (n = 24) and patients with a pHi lower than 7.30 were assigned to group 2 (n = 11). The pHi in group 1 patients averaged 7.37 +/- 0.5 30 min after reperfusion and throughout surgery. The pHi in group 2 patients was lower than that of the group 1 patients 30 min after reperfusion, 7.23 +/- 0.04 (P < 0.001). The pHi in 10 group 2 patients returned to normal within 3 hr after reperfusion and the pHi values for these patients were not significantly different from those of group 1 at 3 hr after reperfusion. The pHi in 1 group 2 patient remained lower than 7.30 and never returned to normal; this patient underwent retransplantation the following day. Utilizing the tonometric nasogastric tube to sample intramucosal pH allowed early detection of graft function and intermittent trending of pHi in patients with questionable graft function during the operative period. It also provided a means of assessing graft function independent of enzymatic criteria, which provide little information in the early phase of transplantation.