Kubler-Ross Bereavement System change e.g. IT Denial Resistance Anger Anger Bargaining Bargaining Depression Acceptance Acceptance Frustration […]
Frances Mortimer: Going green saves money in kidney care
The quest for financial savings was a recurring theme at the British Renal Society/Renal Association (BRS/RA) annual conference last month, and the green nephrology programme had plenty to offer. At last year’s BRS conference, deputy ward manager Libby Critchley was one of the first people to sign up at our green nephrology stall. At that […]
Richard Smith: The rise and rise of “polypathology”
Almost unnoticed by medical schools and health systems the nature of health care has changed radically. The traditional medical model is “patient admitted, diagnosed, treated, cured, sent home,” and the special role of doctors, said one chief medical officer recently, is “diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis.” In reality there is little diagnosis and even less curing. Most […]
Domhnall MacAuley on tackling sedentary lifestyles
Twenty five percent of children age 2 have a television in their bedroom, as do 65% of all children. Is it any wonder that physical activity is a concern. In his opening address to the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting in Baltimore, Jeffrey Koplan (Emory University, Atlanta) pointed out that being sedentary was the […]
Andrew Burd on ‘deadly cosmetic surgery’
One of the sessions I attended at the 15th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Indonesian Association of Plastic Surgeons in Balikpapan was on patient safety. It is incredible to think that the WHO is having a global initiative on safe surgery with the number one goal being to reduce the number of operations performed where the surgeon […]
Muza Gondwe on Gondolosi – African Viagra
I first came across it on a weekend sojourn to Lilongwe from Blantyre in Malawi. On the drive up to Lilongwe, the guys took an unscheduled pit stop in a bustling market village. After protracted discussions, one of the vendors disappeared and promptly returned with several roots of “white ginger” wrapped in a newspaper. We […]
Frances Dixon on medical education about menstruation
A couple of weeks ago my year-group had to plan and carry out an experiment as part of our teaching. I won’t bother going into details, but this experiment involved urine collection and sampling, with ourselves as the subjects. During the planning of this experiment some people were worried about contamination of the samples with […]
Wim Weber on the future of scientific publishing
On 28 and 29 May a small, but highly engaged audience appeared in Leiden for the 3rd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine. The printing press made penning book-copiers obsolete, and these days one fears librarian extinction by computers. But no, they appear to be very much alive, and have taken on […]
Peter Lapsley: 20/20 hindsight
It is a pity that I did not see Mark Haran and colleagues recent BMJ research paper, “Single lens distance glasses reduce falls in active older people” before my wife, Liza, and I went on holiday to Egypt in early April this year – a week spent cruising from Luxor to Aswan, to be followed by a few […]
Richard Smith: Break the English NHS into regions?
“If a minister from England asked you about breaking the English NHS into regions, what would you say?” I asked this of a senior official in the Andalucian ministry of health. “Break it up. No question. You can’t manage a system for more than 10 million people well.” Spain has made this transition. In the […]