Interesting stuff: the Government telling the GMC that it wants evidence based revalidation. The first page of the letter is here (do send the other if you can) and a report is here. It’s not being stopped completely, but there is to be a further year of pilots before  a decision. Good. Revalidation for doctors […]

Previous blogs have related the interesting conundrum about acupuncture: it seems to have a beneficial effect on pain, but not because of the traditional ways of explaining it, via meridians and etc. Rather, there seems to be something biological happening, and the next job is to try and explain it in a rational, science-based way. There has […]

The strategic advisor of the National Obesity Forum says so, in the Guardian. He’s right about awareness campaigns, which are generally useless for lots of reasons. But he’s wrong in thinking that the solution to obesity somehow rests in my consulting room. Lots of evidence suggests that the only long term successful treatment for obesity […]

First, good move  on halting those Darzi centre builds: they were inefficient, and unnecessary. Further cuts are quite easy to make without impinging adversely on patient care: Connecting for Health (very expensive, unnecessary, inefficient) All managers monitoring 4 hour waits in A and E (scrap the target while you’re there), managers monitoring junior doctors hours, […]

This paper from the Archives of Internal Medicine is notable: nurses make mistakes when giving out medication, and nurses who are frequently interrupted make even more mistakes. This might seem like stating the obvious, but often the obvious needs clarification and evidence. What next? I am very afraid that this research will be taken up my people […]

am sorry: the comments function does not seem to be working. I’ve asked my  just-back-from-honeymoon webmaster to take a look. I am at margaret.mccartney@ft.com as usual.

Statins are one thing  keep coming back to: we don’t know much about the very long term use – 30, 40 years – that are going to be routine from now on.My concern is that the Yellow Card system may not be accurate or sensitive enough to do pick up infrequent side effects that nevertheless become common […]

I find myself feeling most uncomfortable over the “Find your me spot” campaign  “organised and paid for by Bayer Schering Pharma”. It’s a series of ‘nights out’ for ladies, with tips on fashion, flirting, how to create ‘kissable lips’  – oh, and contraception. Quite a twist on reps taking doctors out for dinner – take prospective […]

Remedy versus GMC . Good luck, Remedy.

I am troubled by hospital league tables for many reasons, but the biggest reason is that I don’ t think, were I using them for myself or a family member, I would rely on them. I think I would rely most on a nurse or a junior doctor telling me if they would, or wouldn’t, […]