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It ain’t over till it’s over

I’m feeling rather inspired by Clive Peedall and his plea that the Royal Colleges should come together in opposition of the Health Bill. There is good reason to think that the Colleges are now in discussion as to what to do. There is also good reason to think that this can be influenced. The BMA, the […]

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Inside Health and Do Not Resuscitate

Radio 4 Inside Health today – these are the references I used for the column.CPR on television – miracles and misinformation NEJM 1996 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199606133342406 Survival in cancer patients undergoing in-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation: A meta-analysis, Resuscitation, 2006 <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300957206001328#foot1> The Influence of the Probability of Survival on Patients’ Preferences Regarding Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation – New England Journal of […]

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The Alliance for Natural Health – my response

The Which? investigation into nutritional therapists is ably reported here, on DC’s webpage. The Alliance for Natural Therapies responds by saying that ” Although Dr McCartney’s presence on the panel was presumably to advise on the medical diagnoses involved in the investigation, medical doctors in the UK receive minimal training in nutrition as part of their medical […]

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Dr Foster and questionable statistics

Article in the BMJ, following on from blogpost below. Free link isn’t working, so posted below   Observations Medicine and the Media Consultant cover and mortality among hospital patients BMJ 2012; 344 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d8276 (Published 11 January 2012)Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:d8276 Article Related content Metrics Responses Margaret McCartney, general practitioner, Glasgow margaret{at}margaretmccartney.com Dr Foster’s […]

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Read your medical records

Essentially, having access to your own medical records is a good thing. The government have made it clear that this is now a priority and intend to work to make online access for patients so that patients can freely access their own notes. However: I think as it stands it’s unlikely to be very helpful. […]

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