In January, the Royal College of Surgeons published a consultation on proposals to improve standards in cosmetic surgery. It is open until Friday 6 March 2015. Although the vast majority of cosmetic surgery is carried out in the private sector, we hope that doctors from across the different medical specialities, who work in the NHS […]
Category: Guest writers
Emma Rourke: Could you give up chocolate for a month?
This March, the British Heart Foundation is asking people to “give chocolate the finger” and embark on a strict no-chocolate “dechox” regime. There can be no denying that it is a worthy cause, with cardiovascular disease accounting for almost a third of deaths worldwide, and representing one of the most significant healthcare challenges faced by […]
Neel Sharma: Medical education—which teaching methods work?
Medical education is a confusing field at times. Whilst I value its role in cementing training, there seems to be an often all too common course of contrast among educators as to what is classified as valuable academic research into teaching methods. […]
Emma Rourke on why we need to GULP
Last week, Food Active, based in Liverpool and funded by the North West Directors of Public Health, launched a campaign encouraging people to Give Up Loving Pop—or GULP. To gulp something implies urgency and hunger, and it’s certainly true that UK consumers possess an insatiable desire for the fizzy stuff, each putting away an average […]
Kallur Suresh on the portrayal of young onset Alzheimer’s disease in Still Alice
Imagine you’re a world renowned professor of linguistics at New York’s Columbia University. You’ve written game changing books on how children develop their language proficiency in early life and are regularly invited to give scholarly lectures in academic institutions worldwide. You’re at the peak of your academic career, but start to notice that you struggle […]
Neel Sharma: Personality traits—a neglected area of research in medical education
My first admission whilst writing this correspondence is that I am no expert in the field of psychology. I undertook training in psychiatry during my junior years but this only gave me a brief snapshot into people’s mindset. In medical education I note an ever increasing rise in innovation. From the introduction of the OSCE, […]
Mohammed Bahgat et al: Is the friends and family test a true feedback tool of NHS services?
The NHS friends and family test (FFT) was launched in April 2013 to support the fundamental principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience. [1] The results are submitted to NHS England monthly. When combined with supplementary follow-up questions, the FFT provides a mechanism to highlight […]
Marika Davies: Doctors and death row—should doctors ever take part in executions?
The US Supreme court has put three executions in Oklahoma on hold while it considers a legal challenge to the state’s use of midazolam in its lethal injection protocol. This is likely to reignite the debate about the involvement of doctors in capital punishment, a practice that is prohibited by the American Medical Association, but […]
Pallavi Bradshaw: Are medics increasingly at risk of being criminalised?
However clichéd it may sound, like most medics I wanted to be a doctor to help people. While we strive to do the best for our patients, there will be times when things go wrong. Mistakes happen—no one is infallible. We would all like to think that in the aftermath of an error, we would […]
Karl Swedberg and Inger Ekman on person centred care in Europe
The health systems of the European Union make up a central part of Europe’s social protection. They contribute to social cohesion and social justice as well as to sustainable development. Important values that should underpin all European healthcare have been agreed upon. The overarching values of universality, access to good quality care, equity, and solidarity […]