A forum on healthcare policy and professional issues, by Glasgow-based GP and FT Weekend columnist Margaret McCartney
From the category archives:
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 US, [...]
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A paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics is suggesting that non religious doctors “were more likely than others to report having given continuous deep sedation until death, having taken decisions they expected or partly intended to end life” . This seems to have caused some furore on Radio 4 this am with a discussion about whether [...]
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and you live in Scotland, you have something in common with people who have been imprisoned for 5 years or more, people who have been detained in borstal, and people on bail in connection with criminal proceedings.
You are “not qualified for jury service”.
I find this very ageist. Judges can go on until they are 75. [...]
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etc, etc.
I am getting quite bored of the homeopathy debate. It should have moved on a bit, really. So here is the state of play today: James Le Fanu in today’s Telegraph says the BMA, who have recently voted for NHS funding for homeopathy to be withdrawn, aren’t listening to patients but are instead [...]
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So how exactly do we know that there are – as the Health Protection Agency says -around 55,000 new cases of H1N1 “swine” flu each week – especially now that we are no longer swabbing patients before prescribing for it?
Extrapolation. The HPA does give a range, between 30,000 and 85,000 cases. There are about 100 [...]
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The Fair Access to the Professions report is just out.
The bottom line is that there are not many students studying medicine or law from lower social classes. According to the British Medical Association, just 4 per cent of medical students are from lower social classes.
I for one am not convinced that it therefore all about “raising [...]
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An interesting survey has been published by the Foundation for Mental Health. It’s called “Death of the smoking den, The initial impact of no smoking legislation in psychiatric units in England in 2008.”
In the introduction to the report, Louis Appleby, the National Director for Mental Health is quoted as having said in 2007 “The rest of [...]
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Unfortunately, last week’s column of acupuncture seems to have upset a few people.
On the one hand, those who believe in acupuncture have accused me of being unfair to complementary medicine. At the other end of the scale, alternative medicine sceptics have said I am too interested in what acupuncture has to offer.
In order to solve this long-running debate once and for all, I’d like to see [...]
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Britain’s backs are in terrible shape. We spend more time off work because of back pain than for any other ailment, according to the NHS. So it’s not surprising that we are keen to relieve our suffering. A new study on acupuncture and back pain tries to do just this, though in truth it is [...]
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I may not have seen a pharmaceutical rep for over five years, but still the branded pens they gift to medics continue to infiltrate my house and my handbag. I conciously throw out the drug company pens I find, but they just seep back in: every time I lose my own plain biro, there is [...]
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