Health apps for patients have really taken off, with a clear demand for apps that count calories, record weight loss and even dole out a punishment for slacking. Who wouldn’t want to be able to download their own personal trainer for 99p?
There is an app that beeps to the correct timing for chest compressions in CPR. You could of course just download the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive to maintain the correct rate (or even Nellie the Elephant, as I was first taught). Read more »
Does a paternity test equate to the use of a pregnancy test? The latter has long been available OTC but both have the power to deliver results which may delight or devastate the user.
There has been a lot of attention given this week to how scientific research should be presented and accessed.
Consideration is given to how much coverage the eventual research will achieve. This puts pressure on the researcher to feel that they must guarantee a certain level of coverage in order to obtain the funding, resulting in, for example, said researcher having to seek journals with the highest impact factor to publish in. In recent years a lot of emphasis has been placed on open access to research and some funding bodies made it a condition of the funding that any resulting papers must be available in an open access format.
Reality of wintertime general practice: flu, colds, inappropriate demands for antibiotics.
Christmas time general practice: at GP clinical we have been preparing you all year for any Christmas-related medical eventuality. Here’s how:
Apparently, surgeons and anaesthetists regard red-haired patients with ‘some trepidation’ because of their reputation for excessive bleeding and a reduced pain threshold.
But after a search of the literature the authors of this BMJ Christmas article concluded that redheads have no greater risk during surgery than the rest of the population.
Is nutrition taken seriously as an opportunity for early intervention or prevention of many chronic diseases?
How comfortable do you feel raising the issues of diet or obesity with a patient? Is there a slight feeling of unease at not wanting to anger or embarrass the patient and do you ever feel out of your depth giving dietary advice?
“I need a new activity for the winter”, a friend remarked to me at the weekend. “It’s too dark to run after work once the clocks go back.”
This hadn’t struck me as a concern before as my chosen forms or exercise are not so daylight dependent (even on the sunniest of days you will rarely find an outdoor ballet class).
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s comments last week about the extent to which the state should support large families reminded me of a story in The Times last year about family size. Although for different reasons (environmental rather than financial), a GP stated that she would decline to help patients requesting fertility treatment if they already had a large family.
Not just is it fair, but is it ethical, financially justifiable and does it work?
The majority of NICE’s independent Citizens Council voted in favour of offering incentive schemes to patients to help them achieve healthier lifestyles in certain circumstances.
At a meeting I attended last week, a debate broke out amongst a group of GPs on how best to prescribe statins. In reality, current practice varies despite NICE guidelines recommending simvastatin 40 mg. There seem to be differing levels of freedom for GPs when deciding which statins are used and what the starting dose should be. Calls of 10, 20 or 40 mg echoed around the room, met with agreeing nods or a roll of the eyes.
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