Doctors and patients are heading in opposite directions: patients increasingly have multiple conditions, while doctors are specialising not just in organ systems but in parts of organs. What are the consequences of this divergence? We have known for many years now that patients have multiple conditions. As the figure from a Scottish study shows, by […]
In the midst of a blizzard of reports about the overuse of general practice it may seem inappropriate to highlight the problem of underuse, but many people are still presenting to general practice too late, or only presenting as an emergency. Most of us are aware of the challenges that an ageing population—or more specifically […]
It doesn’t seem like much—hardly an offence. A national medical association calling attention to the public health consequences of armed conflict. Business as usual, surely? But not in Turkey. Not under Erdoğan. In January, the Turkish Medical Association warned of the health consequences of the Syrian incursion. Now all 11 members of its Council are […]
We need the GMC to set a powerful precedent by speaking up about the dangers of rota gaps, says Rachel Clarke […]
Most therapeutic medicines have at least three different names. The chemical name, whose form generally follows the rules issued by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). For example, (R)1(3,4dihydroxyphenyl)2methylaminoethanol; the chemical name is an unambiguous description of a drug’s structure, but it is usually cumbersome and irrelevant to practical prescribing, although there […]
Medical journals generally favour transparency, but we’ve recently discovered that when there’s a trade-off between transparency and their financial interest they opt for the money. The International Committee of Medical Journals Editors, the Roman Curia of editors, wants all clinical trials to be registered and data to be shared. The BMJ is so keen on […]
I crashed a plane three times today. The first time I crashed into a tree, the second time into a river, and the third time into a bridge. But it is all okay as it only happened on my son’s virtual reality console. I think that I learned a bit—as I managed to stay airborne […]
There are many benefits to patients from negative trial results […]
Andrew Lansley had his calamitous Health and Social Care Act 2012; Kenneth Clarke introduced the wasteful and destructive NHS internal market before going off to work for British American Tobacco; Enoch Powell was a racist. This does make it a challenge for Jeremy Hunt to podium in the grim competition to be the country’s worst […]
As I noted last week, animals are monophyodonts, diphyodonts, or polyphyodonts. Rodents and some cetaceans, for example, are monophyodonts—their teeth grow continuously and are never replaced. Humans, and most other mammals, are diphyodonts—they normally have two sets of teeth (dentitions), although the numbers of teeth in each dentition are different, so that the 20 deciduous […]