My practice recently revamped its provision of short-notice medical appointments by transforming the Emergency Surgery into the (so far so good) Rapid Access Surgery. In essence, patients can now no longer pitch up to the practice between 11 am and 12 noon and definitely see a doctor regardless of their complaint, or lack thereof. […]
Duncan Jarvies on digital health
Once the domain of big broadcasters like the BBC, video is now becoming more democratised. The plummeting cost and increasing quality of consumer cameras has opened up the world of filming to the masses. Internet services like youtube or vimeo have given people a platform to broadcast their movies. […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
Two BMJ studies published last week have been widely cited by the press. The first has found that women’s resting heart rate is a good predictor of coronary events in women. US researchers studied the heart rates of 129,000 postmenopausal women and found that those with the highest heart rates were more likely to have […]
Trish Groves: More from TED 2009
Bill Gates’ talk on the first day of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference got huge coverage, and within just a few hours some wag had turned Gates’ stunt of releasing mosquitoes into the audience into a Terry Gilliamesque game. […]
Trish Groves at TED 2009 – 4 February
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a movement as much as conference. It started 25 years ago with a couple of hundred technology experts and enthusiasts. Last year it attracted more than 1000 people and outgrew its home in Monterey, so it’s moved to Long Beach, California. Long term TEDsters say it’s broadened in the past […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
The news that cello scrotum is a myth has captured the attention of the press this week and it has been widely cited both in the UK and internationally. The revelation comes as last week Elaine and John Murphy wrote a letter to the BMJ confessing that they invented the condition. They were inspired to […]
Julian Sheather: “Surgeon’s Hall” – On art, medicine and gender
It is fairly widely accepted that medicine is both a science and an art, that it lays claim to a rigorous evidence-based method, while recognising the impact of irreducibly human capacities on healing, capacities like emotion and belief that do not fit easily into a world of verifiability and fact. As a science it aspires […]
A day in the life of an MSF doctor
This evening I am pretty tired again. January and December tend to be the busiest months for the Emergency Unit and there have been a higher percentage than normal of really sick HDU/ITU type cases lately. The days are pretty unpredictable, like A&E at home. The numbers may not seem that high on paper, but […]
Peter Lapsley on the assisted dying debate
What interests the public and what is in the public interest can be two rather different things but can come together to argue strongly for change. Such is the case with British law in respect of assisted dying. It is wrong to say, as some do, that the law is adequate as it stands. It […]
Vidhya Alakeson on the US stimulus bill
While Tom Daschle waits another week for his confirmation as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, health reform has got underway without him in the form of the stimulus bill. The bill that is currently working its way through Congress falls just short of $900 billion in tax cuts and spending. Principally, it is […]