January is the month that heralds the end of procrastination. The New Year is traditionally the time that individuals and organisations look ahead and plan for the future. Among the usual resolutions to do more, eat less, and be more productive, there is also the ubiquitous past-time of predicting the near future. For healthcare the […]
Category: David Kerr
David Kerr: Consumerism and the lost tribe in diabetes
Bad news makes good press. Last week the main medical news item was the release of the National Diabetes Audit figures for England and it made grim reading. The audit collected data from 152 Primary Care Trusts covering almost 70% of the population of people living with diabetes. The bottom line was that there are an […]
David Kerr: Complaints via social media
Social media seems to be the modern equivalent of the stocks. The main objective of the stocks was public humiliation. Nowadays, any member of the public can use social media to highlight grievances they might have against companies, organisations, and institutions and post them for all to see and comment on. […]
David Kerr: Connected for health – an alternative view
There are now two groups of people living with chronic disease, those that are connected and those who are not. In days gone by, “being connected” meant having personal and professional contacts in all of the right places to further an idea, career, or relationship. Being connected nowadays, however, means something completely different – owning […]
David Kerr: Twitterrors – how not to communicate using social media
Medicine is an art more than a science and the canvas is communication. This week the UK supermarket giant Asda announced that it would no longer stock landline telephones as they are becoming as obsolete as white coats and necks ties for hospital doctors. According to one Asda mobile buyer “standing in one place to […]
David Kerr: Loose lips sink ships
Loose lips sink ships was coined as a slogan during WWII as part of the US Office of War Information’s attempt to limit the possibility of people inadvertently giving useful information to enemy spies. Unguarded comments by healthcare professionals hit the headlines in recent weeks after medics were reprimanded for using derogatory terms about hospital […]
David Kerr: The subject that dare not speak its name
Working in the NHS must sometimes feel like working for the United Nations. Whilst first impressions are that our own current team of overseas trainees are actually above average in terms of skill, knowledge, and communication, the General Medical Council are worried that some doctors from outside of the UK arrive here with “little or no […]
David Kerr: Street life
“Taking back the streets” has been a familiar call over recent days. The brief dominance of younger members of our society rampaging through the roads and alleyways across England recently has certainly caused a stir and much debate often using the analogy of a disease – thus far producing a great deal of heat but little […]
David Kerr: The dark side of insulin
It has been a strange few weeks for insulin. This year is the 90th anniversary of its discovery and in everyday clinical practice, insulin still remains “a force of magical activity” as described in a letter to the Times shortly after it was first used in humans. Nowadays, despite a bewildering array of therapies for […]
David Kerr: Healthcare apps
The latest world record for the most number of tweets being sent on a single topic is now held by the Women’s World Cup football final earlier in July this year. Apparently this particular match generated 7196 tweets per second (TPS) with even Barack Obama joining in. Other recent notable world events on Twitter include the […]