A recent study found that the following terms – used by media to attract our attention especially on quiet news days – are no more than pollutants: “breakthrough”, “game changer”, “miracle”, “cure”, “home run”, “revolutionary”, “transformative”, “life saver”, “groundbreaking” and “marvel”. Researchers identified 36 drugs associated with these terms in press releases where the hyperbole […]
How to stay current and clinically competent is an ongoing challenge for clinicians who cover a lot of clinical ground in one day. Most of us make valiant efforts to stay up to date, usually spurred on by inquisition, patients and recertification requirements – though not necessarily in that order. For decades it has been […]
Going into hospital these days is like embarking on a voyage: the doctor provides the ticket, the nurse conducts us to our bed and from then on we hurtle through the hospital corridors from one stop to the next anxiously watching for signs to our anticipated destination. What used to be termed a hospital stay […]
When venture capitalist Martin Shrekli recently bought a pharmaceutical company and repackaged and repriced, by 5000%, an old drug that HIV patients use to treat fungal infection, he set the world of pharmaceutical pricing on fire. That kind of maverick decision by Shkreil made me, for one, realize how much our wellbeing is at the […]
It seems doctors and patients no longer share a commitment to the same vows. At least that is what a recent European study is suggesting after taking a robust look at whether patients and doctors are congruent in their views about what should happen during the consultation. Studies of the GULiVer-1 type of research are not […]
Reaction to my last post revealed that few are ready to let health die with dignity and rest in peace. Fair enough. But despite impassioned attachment it’s not apparent why health, in its dying throes, must attain a semi-hubristic status; or why the jettisoning of health is so threatening to humans; or why we no […]
In 1978 the WHO produced the Alma Ata Declaration and by promoting health, as opposed to treating illness, radically changed the face of healthcare. Today its lofty aspiration: “the attainment of the highest possible level of health” is just another 21century commodity with goods and services traded by governments, insurers and providers. But the more […]
It could be said that much of the health research done in the past three decades has been lost in a tsunami of health information. Just try iterating health data through even the most sophisticated search engines; your result will almost always be a sticky mass of disjointed facts. And once you’ve piled them up […]
The UK’s recent summer budget was certainly operating on summer time when the Chancellor reiterated his commitment to 8am to 8pm GP service delivery despite professional resistance and continuing evidence warning of the risks of such an edict. The extension of working hours is, at best, a band-aid solution to a festering wound, which could be lethal if its […]
Determining value in contemporary healthcare has always been a matrix of competing and synergistic forces primarily driven by clinical parameters, costs and patients…until recently. Earlier this year The American Society of Clinical Oncology attempted to unpack and quantify the matrix through the identification of five categories: Clinical benefit (as determined by survival), Toxicity, Palliation (a […]
In this day and age few among us could claim to be in the dark about the value of exercise to our wellbeing and longevity. The fitness industry mushroomed during the latter half of the last century; today our marketplace is flooded with watches and other gimmicks to help us track measure and maintain our […]
Not a day goes by without media reference to healthcare delivery. And whether rhetoric is emerging from a political, administrative or provider arena it’s always the same: ‘…healthcare is about the health of all patients not just those who can afford it…’; ‘…value and quality should drive patient services not fee-for-services rendered or bed occupancy’. […]
Last century saw public health advance from what was essentially a communicable disease surveillance activity to a public health and help entity. Public health activists not only described problems in a global way but worked with governments and agencies to prioritise so that real change could occur. In short it became the motivator and effector […]
The noun invasion has its origins in the 12th century Latin word invadere: to walk, to go into, to fall upon. In the 15th century we adopted the Old French term invasion, which is steeped in negative concepts like attack and assault. This definition, ubiquitous across healthcare, remains in use today. It stands to reason […]
In 1898 Würzburg medical student Hermann Rottmann proposed tobacco dust, not smoke, might be causing the elevated incidence of lung tumors among German tobacco workers. In 1912 New York doctor Isaac Adler proposed smoking, not tobacco dust, was to blame for the growing incidence of pulmonary tumours. The intervening years reveal a rocky road on […]
Living longer increases our likelihood of experiencing more than one chronic health problem at a time. At least one in two older people have more than one chronic disorder with an average number of conditions ranging between 2.5 and 6.5. That is a heavy burden for one person. Co-morbidity or multimorbidity, as it is now […]
During the last century clinical curiosity in the human body focussed on what is inside. With the exception of dermatology, interest in exposed surfaces has been outside of the medical domain and frequently only skin deep. In short, attempts at linking the body’s exterior to its inner workings have occasionally surfaced but these have largely […]
Much is made of the need for strong leaders in healthcare. Yet increasing regulation and a fiscally restrictive environment leaves little room to manoeuvre for even the most effective healthcare leaders. For consumers searching for visionary leadership, hospitals (inanimate, often impoverished and frequently imperfect) by their sheer physical presence are emerging as the most visible […]
When we buy a car we are required (in most countries) to provide evidence of third party insurance before we can drive the car on government roads. Similarly, banks require us to take out mortgage insurance to protect their loans. Insurance is about risk coverage and, traditionally, where risk is high so are the premiums. […]
The description of the human genome was a great advance for science. Identifying the 3.0 billion base pairs that make up the genome is no mean feat: compared with Japan’s Paris japonica flower (the largest genome identified so far), which boasts 152.23 billion base pairs, it is quite small. Size makes this discovery important, as […]
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