Center Quality Assurance and Care Committee.
Also included in that review are items such as the
appropriateness of the useof anti-infective agents.
A certified medical records consultant randomly
reviews approximately 20 percent of our records
for accuracy and completeness.

MEDICAL FINDINGS
Patient Participation:

The participation of many excellent

Staff:

The Marshall Islands Medical Program is
deeply indebted to the many outstanding
physicians who, despite the inevitable personal
inconvenience, participated in the medical team
visits of 1988-1991. It is fair to say that they are
the heart of the program. Drawn from excellent
medical centers through the United States and
from private practices, these physicians provide
the program with a wide range of up-to-date
clinical experience and perspective that contribute
to better patient care. The physicians and other
medical team personnelinvolved in the 1988-1991
missions are listed in Appendix A. The clinical
role of team physicians is the delivery of primary
and subspecialty care. By selecting subspecialists
who remain active in general medicine for this
role, the medical program benefits from in-depth
knowledge of their specialty. The following
medical specialties and subspecialties were
represented in 1988-1991:
Internal Medicine
Pediatrics
Cardiology
Rheumatology
Radiology
Gastroenterology
Hematology
Endocrinology
Surgery
Ophthalmology
Obstetrics/Gynecology
Pulmonary Medicine
Emergency Medicine
Oncology

(corrected for nonavailability) were:
Rongelap

Utirik

1988

86%

84%

Comparison 68%

1989

82%

91%

62%

1990

88%

85%

65%

The percent of the eligible population efamined
on at least one occasion during the last fpur-year

period was:

Rongelap
Utirik

Comparison

95%
98%

90%

These figures do not include severalf persons
residing outside the MarshallIslands. Mosifexposed
personsin this category have medical examinations
arranged through a local physician [by the

Department of Energy or the Marshal§ Islands
Medical Program.

The acceptance rate for mammography

among

eligible women was 100%. For sigmofdoscopy,
about 75% of age-eligible persons elfcted to
undergo this procedure on a regular basi
Overall Survival:

After 37 years there continues to

difference between the survival curves of dither the _

high-exposure Rongelap group or the low—exposure
Utirik group and the age- and gendergmatched
unexposed Rongelap population selected in 1957
(Fig. 1). Estimates of the survival distripution by
the actuarial life table method were analyaed by the
Mantel-Cox and Breslow statistics for t@sting the
equality of the survival curves. The “p" Jalues for
the two tests were 0.66 and 0.82, respectively, for
the Rongelap and Comparison group, ang 0.43 and

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