Mary Gunn, looking very well and wearing her 65 years lightly, stands in front of the audience in an Edinburgh bookshop describing how eight years ago she was diagnosed with recurrent breast cancer and given two years to live. She is launching her book Well: A Doctor’s Journey Through Fear to Freedom. The book tells […]
The media have a longstanding interest in “avoidable deaths” in hospital. Recently, a particular reporting focus was on variation in mortality at the weekend. Predictably, this caused major controversy. Most care given in hospitals is to use the CQC’s jargon—“safe and effective.” Undoubtedly, there are systemic problems that influence outcomes and mortality, and occasionally things […]
Simply the presence of a good physical environment signals organisational respect and care […]
John Banester (1533 -1610) was an English surgeon and educator. He learned his surgery by going to war—he went on a military expedition to the continent. On his return to England he was keen to pass on what he had learned—and here he is teaching at the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall. […]
In 2012, Savita Halappanavar died in an Irish hospital from miscarriage complications after being refused an abortion. The treating physicians believed that because the fetus still had a beating heart their “hands were tied.” Under Irish law, abortion is a criminal offence unless necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman, yet there is […]
An infusion of money to “fight the epidemic” is going to have little impact […]
When it comes to image interpretation, context can be all-important […]
Stopping the clinic’s biscuit supply may seem trivial, but small things make a difference, says Ceinwen Giles […]
Violence increasingly dominates the news. Be it sexual abuse of children, violence against women, alcohol-fuelled nightlife violence, or the pervasive threat of terrorism; each leaves victims suffering life-long harms, impacts the mental health of whole communities, and (regardless of positive political rhetoric) limits individuals’ freedom to enjoy public and private spaces. Improved knowledge on the […]
Richard Lehman reviews the latest research in the top medical journals […]