Carmel Sparke AN anaesthetist has been reunited

jewellery as she finished her shift . The scrubs — and the ring — were

Free Hospital in London , anaesthetics registrar Dr Suraj Shah was preparing

After contacting the laundry service , Royal Free Hospital staff dis-

with her diamond ring after it was lost

then dispatched to a laundry service .

for his shift in ICU , putting on freshly

covered that someone 160km away

in her scrubs pocket , commercially

Dr Ramasamy did not realise the

laundered green scrubs , when some-

— Dr Ramasamy — had reported the

laundered and discovered by another

jewellery was missing until the next

thing clattered to the floor .

missing ring .

doctor working at a hospital 160km

evening .

A colleague spotted the ring .

Dr Shah said it was good to feel

away .

“ Then it was the weekend , so I

Dr Shah checked with the nurs-

part of “ a bit of a little miracle ”.

Dr Radhika Ramasamy removed

didn ’ t report it to my facilities team

ing team and other doctors but had no

Dr Ramasamy said : “ I want to

her ring to perform a spinal anaes-

until the Monday ,” Dr Ramasamy said .

luck finding an owner so alerted the

say a huge thankyou to all the peo-

thetic on a patient in December at

“ To be honest , I never expected

hospital ’ s facilities team .

ple involved … in reuniting me

West Suffolk Hospital in the UK .

to get it back , as I thought it would

“ I knew how downhearted my wife

with a ring that has real sentimen-

Dr Radhika Ramasamy .

She meant to place it back on her finger but was called away to another procedure and forgot about the

be crushed in the machinery at the laundry .”

But five days later , at the Royal

would be if she ’ d lost a ring that had sentimental value to her , so that was in the back of my mind ,” Dr Shah said .

tal value to me as it was a birthday present from my husband a few years ago .”

Rachel Fieldhouse PAEDIATRIC sepsis and septic

shock diagnoses should no

longer be based on systemic

inflammatory response syndrome

criteria , according to an

international team of doctors .

Instead , it recommends

using the new Phoenix Sepsis

Score — which measures cardiovascular

, neurological , respiratory

and / or coagulation

dysfunction — when diagnosing

sepsis in children .

The University of Zurich –

led team , which developed the

criteria , said a score of at least

two reliably identified potentially

life-threatening organ

dysfunction in children with

suspected infection .

The doctors also defined

septic shock as sepsis with

cardiovascular dysfunction ,

such as severe hypotension

for age , blood lactate greater

than 5mmol / L or needing

vasoactive medication . Paediatric

intensivist Dr Marino

Festa , who was not involved in

developing the criteria , said it

was a game changer given the

“ misalignment ” between clinical

practice and the systemic

inflammatory response syndrome

( SIRS ) -based definition .

“ If you are acutely injured

or burnt , or if you have just

had surgery , you will have a

SIRS response . And in and of

itself , it does not seem useful

enough clinically to differentiate

patients with sepsis ,” said

the Westmead Children ’ s Hospital

specialist .

“ This new definition is

moving us forward to look

at the effect of the patient ’ s

response to infection and to

characterise the effect on the

patient ’ s organ systems … and

to identify specific features of

how that looks across organ

systems .”

He stressed that the new

criteria were not designed to determine who should receive

antibiotics , which need to be

given as early as possible if

sepsis is suspected . JAMA 2024 ; 21 Jan .