Did Nadine distract us from the Health and Social Care Bill? Free link to BMJ article here.
Continue Reading →Advocacy, and what GPs do.
Interesting twitter discussion about what GPs do, and who is whose advocate. Muir Grey thinks “the patient is the principal some not all need an advocate” , and that “because of ‘information asymmetry’.. it is often difficult for the citizen to act like a principal.” I am confused and dismayed by the logic that then, […]
Continue Reading →The bicycle is almost ready
Adult and child asylum seekers
should be treated with humanity. Free link to BMJ article here.
Continue Reading →The Health bill : lack of coverage is a bad prognosis
Health and Social Care Bill has apparently been carried. The government won with a majority of 65. Look at the ‘debate’ here – a sedate affair, with plenty of jolly laughing, a bit of sexism, and an aside about the wonders of complementary medicine thrown in. A sixth year debating society would have done better. Meantime, the […]
Continue Reading →More or Less
Little 7 minute section on the placebo effect, acupunture, and ethics. Available on listen again on iplayer, here.
Continue Reading →Choices for screening and paternalism
Luisa Dillner wrote a statistically correct and informative article about breast screening in the Guardian recently; she has been replied to by Chris Askew, the chief executive of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. He makes a big mistake. In his first paragraph, he says “Breakthrough Breast Cancer hopes this will not discourage women from attending their breast-screening […]
Continue Reading →Mind and complementary medicines
I’m always looking for good sources of information to share with patients. Sometimes people share what they’ve found with me. My criteria: well explained, fair, evidence based, updated, and clear about uncertainties. And so I must report my unhappiness with the Mind website, in regard to complementary and alternative medicines; their website: “complementary therapy is one […]
Continue Reading →Please don’t let the NHS die
The health bill is capable of destroying the NHS. I wish this was hyperbole. It’s not. I am in Scotland, where things are a bit more sensible. Markets were tried, with Independent Sector Treatment Sectors, but because our hospitals tend to be geographically distant, it’s not really feasible to have a competitive market based system […]
Continue Reading →Do not resuscitate – why death needs to have heart
So: Addenbrooke’s hospital are being sued for allegedly illegally using a ‘do not resuscitate order’ on a patient. The patient had allegedly expressed that she wished to be resuscitated, but apparantly the order was written anyway. Meantime, we have Iona Heath writing in the BMJ about how CPR “amounts to yet another scenario within contemporary medicine where […]
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