Rapid Pace of Scientific Advancement

Elliot M Levine

doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000e114

ISSN: 2376-127X

Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health

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Rapid Pace of Scientific Advancement

Elliot M Levine^*
Director of Informatics and Research, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chicago, USA
Corresponding Author :	Elliot M Levine Director of Informatics and Research Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chicago, USA Tel: 1-773-296-5254 Fax: 1-773-296-7205 E-mail: elliot.levine@advocatehealth.com
Received May 23, 2015; Accepted May 25, 2015; Published May 29, 2015
Citation: Levine EM (2015) Rapid Pace of Scientific Advancement. J Preg Child Health 2:e114. doi: 10.4172/2376-127X.1000e114
Copyright: © 2015 Levine EM. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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The rapid pace of medical/scientific advancement often poses difficulty for the average practitioner, to significantly appreciate and possibly adopt and apply practice changes to their own clinical endeavors. Having a journal publish meaningful manuscripts of appropriately performed research, with its easy availability to physicians, is particularly attractive and important. Many ideas, on which our clinical practice is based, need to be critically vetted, and having the availability of a journal such as the Journal of Pregnancy and Child Birth is therefore worthwhile. Examples of evolving practice patterns in Obstetrics and Neonatology include the performance of episiotomy at parturition, identification of indications for cesarean delivery, identification of those patients at risk of glucose intolerance, fetal aneuploidy detection in pregnancy, and the management of Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE), to name just a few items.

Episiotomy is a good example of this. While a couple of decades ago when it was more routinely employed at vaginal delivery, it seems now in retrospect, to have caused an increase in the likelihood of third and fourth degree perineal lacerations. So, we see it less likely to be performed at present. Since its known association with advanced perineal lacerations (APL) has caused this marked decline in its use. However, we may be seeing an increase in the rate of APL when it is not performed, suggesting the possibility that the judicious use of episiotomy could actually protect the perineum and pelvic floor. Naturally, obstetricians may need to consider this.

Identifying such perinatal trends can now be made more efficiently with our collective use of electronic digitally-acquired clinical information, as it is now more commonplace with our use of the Electronic Health Record (EHR). Though such use is often criticized by the practicing physician, because of the possibly additional physician time that is required, this data acquisition can be nonetheless considered a possible advantage of using the EHR.

There are as yet other commonly used clinical practices that need to rigorously examined, so that we can all wind up practicing evidencebased medicine universally. Then the practice of modern Obstetrics can be recognized as resulting in the most ideal perinatal outcomes (i.e. mother and baby). Given that a physician’s time should be considered as a premium resource, we should all use this well-intentioned time spent reviewing the literature, to enable us to provide the safest and most effective patient care.