Category: U

When a treatment fails to achieve its intended results, the failure may be due to the method employed or its use. For example, a contraceptive failure may occur because the method was inadequate or because it really was not employed or was employed improperly. Thus the “method effectiveness” or the “use effectiveness” may have been…

The term used to designate the kind of thing being considered. In health care, diagnoses, the terms applied to describe disorders of patients, form one universe. Other universes are the ages of patients, sexes, external forces such as those which cause injuries, surgical procedures – the list is virtually endless.  

An organization of 325 authorities in medicine, pharmacy, and allied sciences, which revises and publishes the Pharmacopeia of the United States of America (USP) and the National Formulary. The official name for a site or address of a resource on the Internet. Resources include home pages, graphic images, text files, and digitized sights and sounds…

A national organ transplant network. This network is under contract to the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to coordinate United States organ procurement activities.  

The system for filing medical records in which a separate file is kept for each individual patient, and the medical records of all hospitalizations of that individual are placed in the one file.  

The person in charge of a patient care unit (PCU).  

A uniform (model) act that attempts to resolve the debate over whether surrogacy contracts are valid. The act has two alternatives: the state can choose to declare all such agreements void, or the act provides detailed guideline for valid surrogacy agreements if the state wishes to permit them. North Dakota has adopted the view that…

This model Act, adopted as is by 26 states and used as a model in other states, provides the following: “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death…

A compilation of laws governing commercial transactions including sales of goods, banking transactions, and secured transactions for personal property. The Code has been adopted, with minor modifications, by all 50 states (Louisiana did not adopt the UCC in its entirety), the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. The UCC has greatly facilitated interstate…

A student in an academic institution who has not achieved a given degree. The term most often refers to an individual before the bachelor’s degree, but in medicine, the degree in question is the Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree.