On the recent ‘festival’ of live tweeting from A+E/ambulances/GP surgeries; If done carelessly, thoughtlessly, or simply unimaginatively, this can be unpleasant or even  dangerous. Consider: (and I’m paraphrasing) * A tweet commenting that ‘lots of ladies are coming in to A+E for emergency contraception. Didn’t they know they can get it from pharmacies!’ This could […]

free link to BMJ article 

Loneliness is endemic.  There are people who live alone, and who will see someone else rarely. Often, people who are lonely can’t get out much – unsteady, lacking confidence, afraid, anxious – and rely on relatives or rare visitors to help with shopping or outings. Many people – often older people – will still dress […]

Whole system demonstrator cluster RCT The introduction says that the “monitoring of blood glucose” is an example of of useful monitoring that can be done by patients. In fact, Cochrane is pretty clear about how useful this is for people with type 2 diabetes not using insulin (the majority of people with diabetes), saying that […]

Radio 4 programme Inside Health on telehealth with references   BMJ article on press coverage Cochrane on telehealth  JAMA telehealth in multimorbidity group showing increased mortality BMJ Whole system demonstrator trial with excellent response from @trishgreenhalgh            

as facial hair now sprouts forth, let us examine the health advice that Movember is offering on its website. Useful points: here, they give a good rundown on what you can do to reduce your risk of avoidable premature death or illness; essentially it is this. Don’t smoke, keep to a healthy weight, do some […]

The doctor won’t see you now: online consulting and prescribing      The assault on the Liverpool care pathway 

New things today 31/10/12 Article in Pulse (free reg needed)  Comment is free in the Guardian Here is the press release from the Lancet: Independent panel concludes that breast cancer screening reduces deaths, but overdiagnoses **Embargo: 00:01 [UK time], Tuesday October 30, 2012** An independent panel of experts has concluded that routine breast cancer screening […]

..have posted this response to http://privatehealthscreen.org/, you can see my response on their page and CEMB’s Carl Henegan’s response here, which is not (yet?) up.    

I think not. Last week I was very pleased to have been asked to  the Glasgow Evidence Based Medicine Society. I going to talk about the problems of medical headlines in the media. I got there a bit early and so went to a session being run by Pfizer on how to critically analyse a paper. […]