Earlier this year, Sir Alan Craft visited our locality in order to advise the hospital trust on downgrading our paediatric service and replacing our consultant-led obstetric service with a midwife-led unit. […]
BMJ 11 Aug 2007 Vol 335
Lancet 11 Aug 2007 Vol 370
This prospective observational study from Germany opens up the question of which method is best for breast cancer screening – conventional mammography or MRI? […]
Ann Intern Med 7 Aug 2007 Vol 147
For some weeks this paper has been on the journal’s website, bringing the unwelcome news that outcomes for women with diabetes have not improved between the NHANES cohort of 1971-1986 and the cohort of 1986-2000. […]
Plant of the Week: Aesculus parviflora
I normally confine my remarks to plants I have grown myself, but unfortunately I’ve never possessed the space to grow this big suckering shrub from the horse chestnut family, which produces abundant candles of white flower in late July and August. […]
JAMA 1 Aug 2007 Vol 298
An issue devoted to Violence and Human Rights, with three papers from Northern Uganda, carrying the depressing messages that we don’t know of a useful intervention to alleviate distress in young war survivors, and that together with post-traumatic stress disorder comes an inability to contemplate forgiveness. […]
NEJM 2 Aug 2007 Vol 357
You may remember that in April JAMA published a paper by the indefatigable Harlan Krumholz and his team, who looked for 85 reported genetic risk markers for coronary disease in 811 patients with acute coronary events without confirming a single significant association. Clearly the way these polymorphisms have been sought for up to now is […]
BMJ 4 Aug 2007 Vol 335
For the benefit of a patient who has ovarian cancer and had been taking hormone replacement therapy, I have just been reviewing the HRT risk/benefit equation as we have come to understand it over the last 7 years or so. […]
Lancet 4 Aug 2007 Vol 370
A big brain, upright posture, a musical larynx, and the hand – such are the glories of anatomy which set us apart from other primates. […]
Plant of the Week: Hydrangea aspera “Macrophylla”
The big Himalayan lacecap hydrangeas are loving the British weather this summer. They are never happier than when regularly drenched in some damp shady spot, in which conditions they become the most spectacular shrubs of late summer. […]
NHS trusts claim they can cope as contract deadline looms
The NHS employers organisation says its members are confident that they will be able to provide a full and safe level of service throughout the coming weeks, despite the difficulties surrounding the appointment of junior doctors to new contracts from this Wednesday (1 August). […]