Jannett is my patient, who I have been following up since last year when she presented with Lambert Eaton myasthenic syndrome. The diagnosis was not straightforward, but then neither has her management. Around May, I realised that the treatment she was on, unlicensed 3,4- diaminopyridine, was due to be withdrawn due to the price hike […]
Category: Guest writers
Hamish Meldrum on the health white paper
It’s four months since the Department of Health published its Health White Paper for England, during which time seven additional consultations have emerged, and hundreds of organisations have responded. But despite the growing volume of White Paper-related material, not to mention the ambitious timescale set out to “liberate the NHS”, much of the picture is […]
David Pencheon: Learning to learn comfortably
I have had two distinctly different learning experiences this week. First, for 48 hours in a summit of NHS managers, clinical leaders, and others in a posh hotel, and secondly, this morning, lying in the bath, listening to podcasts of Chris Ham, Muir Gray, and other visionaries. Both were rewarding and from both I learnt a lot. […]
Jason Warriner: A true partnership – learning as much as teaching
I have volunteered for CHIVA Africa since 2005 and have seen many changes take place with the rollout of antiretrovirals (ARVs) in KwaZulu Natal (KZN). When I compare my early visits in 2005 with my current trips, the growth and impact of the programme are highly visible and new challenges arise all the time. […]
Chris Ham on general practice in Australia
If familiarity breeds contempt, then distance lends perspective. This much I learned – or remembered – on a recent visit to Australia. Invited to give the keynote address at the Australian General Practice Network National Forum 2010 in Perth, I was reminded of the strengths of general practice in the NHS. Registration with a practice, […]
Desmond O’Neill reviews “Taking the keys away”
If geriatricians had a pound for every time an adult child said that it wasn’t safe for their older parent to go home from hospital, their financial standing would improve enormously. It is an almost daily occurrence for geriatricians to mediate between older adults (who tend to value independence and embrace risk) and their adult […]
Mike Clarke: Core outcomes for autism, COMET, and the Cochrane journal club
Autism spectrum disorders place a tremendous burden on the sufferers and their families and carers. Parents are often desperate for treatments that might help, but are not receiving the best possible guidance from research that has already been done, because of a lack of consistency in the outcomes used in this research and the subsequent […]
Annabel Bentley: Information overload…are you waving or drowning?
Information is out of control. Whether it’s a bulging email inbox of journal alerts or an unread pile of medical journals, we’re all drowning in unread and out-of-date information. But at last, I may have found the secret to effortless continuing professional development (CPD): just read 75 trials and 11 systematic reviews a day. What […]
Vasiliy Vlassov on a Russian medical conference without pharma support
Four hundred years ago on European maps the land that became Russia was called “Tartaria.” Now Tatarstan is a national republic in the Russian Federation. It is small by Russian standards — the size of Netherlands — economically stable, and has an educated population. Recently a conference took place at the local Medical Academy entitled […]
Anna Dixon: The NHS white paper – what do doctors think of their new roles?
The past few months have been busy for anyone like me whose job it is to make sense of the government’s policy on health care. The coalition government launched a series of detailed consultations to accompany the health white paper “Equity and Excellence: liberating the NHS” back in August, and the 12-week period for consultation […]