The NEJM carries a concerning article: a woman having a CT of head was exposed, accidentally, to a radiation overdose. She became unwell afterwards, and she’s suing. However the article also points out that new imaging techniques, getting more information about brain structures and blood flow mean that radiation doses from scans can now be […]
Continue Reading →Best science joke of ’10 (so far)
Schrodingers’ cat walks into a bar. And doesn’t. (Thank you Julie Miller)
Continue Reading →what’s a mistake?
Diagnosis is an odd thing: occasionally it is easy and satisfying (at least to the doctor). More often it is elusive, taking time, tests, and possibly time again to become clear. I’m not even sure if I do make a definite, cast-iron diagnosis that often. Another way of looking at symptoms, and which seldom appear […]
Continue Reading →Sense from Scandinavia, and where is the UK?
Here’s a great editorial on informed consent in screening. 15 years ago, I always felt a bit alone when voicing my concerns about the way that medical screening tests were often oversold to patients, who weren’t often told of the problems and failings of testing, never mind the problems we could end up dealing with […]
Continue Reading →The moral of the whale and the dolphin
If you are ever thinking of a tattoo, read Northern Doctor first.
Continue Reading →The shared electronic medical record: not much use, and still, more harm than good
At least that’s what I’m concluding from this BMJ paper “Adoption and non adoption of a shared electronic summary record in England: A mixed-method case study.” The authors examined many instances of the record being used and decided that it didn’t seem to improve safety, but that it might rarely avoid medication errors. And that […]
Continue Reading →The new self-smear test: do we want to be tested for HPV?
HPV is the cause of most cervical cancer. The relatively new vaccine against it hopes to deliver some immunity (for how long? – there are stories yet to be told). The problem is that it is very hard to tell who will not naturally clear HPV infection by themselves – most women do. This article […]
Continue Reading →Chiropractic ‘checks’ for children
I am aware of several clinics offering these with the promise of easing colic, even asthma: or preventing problems allegedly caused by birth……so well played, to the journal of Chiropractic and Osteopathy, which concludes, after reviewing the evidence, that a lack of evidence for chiropractic in children has been noted since the 1940s, and almost […]
Continue Reading →Angela Raffle on the problems with screening
..in Clinical Evidence. And I’m so chuffed to be name checked…
Continue Reading →Evidence that euthanasia laws
don’t seem to work that well. See this paper in the Canadian Medical Journal: euthansia and assisted suicide seem to occur in Belgium without explicit request. I cannot understand why there is so much belief in the idea that ‘good laws’ could protect people if a UK law allowing physician assisted suicide were passed. There seems no […]
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