..is rife, and I am so pleased that the Daily Mail have had a hand in upholding a GMC complaint against one doctor offering expensive unproven treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. Shall the GMC now going to reach further and wider and root out some more examples of non evidence based treatments being offered by their […]
Continue Reading →Oliver James vs Genetics
Rather a nasty spat on the Today programme this am; the issue being that of a paper on the genetics in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, published online in the Lancet. The paper had found a slightly increased risk of ADHD with a particular genetic pattern. Having this pattern did not necessarily lead to autism. Children with […]
Continue Reading →Thank you
I’m so touched by the emails in response to my last in the FT: I will reply to each one (just back from a September weekend in wild woods, no batteries on iphone) over the next few days. In the meantime, here’s a quickie from the Times today about risks and benefits of aspirin (or […]
Continue Reading →300K for a GP?
The average GP doesn’t earn this much, but anyway, earning 300K as an NHS GP is now possible. How? The usual way is for one GP to be the managing director of several NHS surgeries. Most will employ salaried doctors and nurses to deliver care; the profit becomes singularly that of the managing doctor/director. It’s […]
Continue Reading →My last FT col
..will be printed this Saturday. It’s quite good fun doing a column but the dread and terror of getting things wrong doesn’t really improve with time. . .
Continue Reading →Carl Elliott on opinion leaders
Excellent article. Looking forward to reading his book.
Continue Reading →Prostate cancer screening: what do the papers actually say?
Lots of press attention has gathered around the latest research on prostate cancer screening. To be clear: there is no NHS screening programme for prostate cancer screening. Instead, if men want a screening PSA test they can ask for it from their GP. The DoH’s press release in response to the latest research looks like this: […]
Continue Reading →Ghosts in the machine
When I was a medical student, I went to lectures which told me that HRT was going to stop everything from dementia to heart attacks to teeth falling out. I hardly prescribe it now, such are the hazards, especially of breast cancer, and given that the long term benefits are not what we were sold. […]
Continue Reading →Tell me the truth about Fit Notes
So the big idea was that people who were off work due to illness might be able to do some work, perhaps not their regular work, or perhaps people returning to work while recovering from illness might be better having a graduated return. Rather than simply signing people off work while ill and then back […]
Continue Reading →Medicating children for ‘psychosis’
This very insightful article from the NY Times explores the consequences of labelling a pre-school child with behaviour problems with severe mental illness. This US view is disturbing, from the ease of which anti-psychotic medication is prescribed off-license, to the pharmaceutical company who supplied promotional building bricks to use in the waiting room. In the […]
Continue Reading →