There is a piece in the Observer this week about the Jeremy Kyle show. The author says that people with serious mental health problems are prey to the exposure these kinds of shows bring. These shows – where aggressive confrontation and public goading are to used to provoke and taunt people about personal problems or issues – are nasty to watch. […]
Continue Reading →The right to hunger strike
The Lancet has a great editorial today. It’s about the need for guidance for doctors who are asked to assess prisoners who are hunger strikers. They say that doctors should recognise that hunger strike may be the sole method of protest a prisoner has. People who are starving, however, may become confused and disorientated; the difficulty then […]
Continue Reading →Matters of life, death, and knickers
This week’s BMJ carries a review I’ve written on Iona Heath’s new book ‘Matters of Life and Death: Key Writings’. Dr Heath is a GP in London and is someone whose attitude towards medicine I’ve admired for many years. This book has made me think hard about what it is that doctors are meant to […]
Continue Reading →The “Botox Dollar”
There is an interesting and worrying piece in the New York Times about dermatologists in the US. The charge is that patients attending with medical skin complaints are treated as second class compared with those patients seeking cosmetic interventions. The latter make more money for the MDs. The insurance company payout for seeing people with ‘ordinary’ medical skin […]
Continue Reading →Sir Liam and licenses
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has published his report today on the ‘principles and next steps’ of medical revalidation. The bottom line seems to be that doctors will have to undergo relicensing every five years. We have annual appraisals already, but appraisals are meant to be supportive and reflective. The new system will have end […]
Continue Reading →Incentives for incisions
The BBC are reporting that surgeons “could earn bonuses for successful operations”. Imperial College Healthcare Trust in London are said to be piloting such a scheme. The news has been greeted with general outrage on the BBC’s messageboard, and quite right too. The scheme presumes medical professionalism is dead. I don’t think it’s dead, but it is certainly […]
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