A few clinical facts

Every Friday morning, all doctors and medical students of the Department of Internal Medicine meet for a meeting. There, either a medical lecture is held, a specific case is discussed, or there is a summary of the month. Today there was a summary of February:

- 512 patients admitted

- 58 deaths = mortality 11.3%

- 13 deaths within 24 hours

- Age: 12-82 years

- 57% men, 43% women

- Diagnoses: liver diseases (26.2%), stroke (19%), malignancies (19%), infections (16.7%), heart failure (7.1%), liver diseases (4.8%), sickle cell anemia (2.3%)

It was very exciting, but actually a comparison would be very helpful. I searched around, but unfortunately only found one number. In the University Hospital Basel, in 2015, in internal medicine 4907 patients were admitted (~ 409 patients per month). But as far as I know, not 10% of the patients die! In addition, the patients in Europe are older. The average life expectancy in Ghana is 61 years, while in Switzerland it is 83/84 years. This means we have patients who are even 105+ years old.