Even before the CoVID-19 pandemic, more and more people were working remotely. Between 2012 to 2016, the number of people working remotely rose by four percent globally. In the US, 43% of workers spend some of their time working remotely. In countries such as Finland, Japan, Netherlands and Sweden, more than half the population work […]
Category: classification
Traditional wisdom about chronic diseases holds that they usually last for three months or longer and may worsen over time. They are supposed to occur more in older adults and can usually be controlled but not cured. Conditions, which we thought worsen with age, paradoxically provide some protection. As with preventable disease, identifying risks early in […]
Pharmaceutical names are an important part of branding products. They are designed to encode a message about the product. Older names were focussed on the clinical aspects of a drug. Sometimes they alluded to the disease such as Procardia for heart problems and Tamiflu for influenza treatment. Other names related to what the drug does […]
Medicine is not just a science. It is a living practice. Translating emerging science into practice is one of the key skills of doctors. Before scientific knowledge became viral, translation was merely a matter of communication. Now, as the science of medicine reaches epidemic proportions, it is becoming more and more difficult to perform this […]
Despite the best research into cancer, it still remains a generic term describing out-of-control cells, which all look different, from site to site. The diversity of cancer, still perplexes researchers and there are many unanswered questions about how cancer invades bodies, which drugs work and why cures remain elusive. The researchers who are studying A […]
Seasonal change often generates a flurry of diagnosing. It should be okay to be sad about the shortening days, rather than suffering from ‘seasonal affective disorder’. In women, a runny nose and a sore throat transforms into ‘flu’ and in men it becomes ‘manflu’. Once a diagnosis is made it is indelible. Escalation of symptoms […]
Support medicine based on individuals; not paper. Encourage responsive practice; based on divergent thinking with the ability to converge when necessary. Commit to genuine funding for health, that is, ten percent GDP for ten years from government and private sector. Ensure that hospitals remain places for treating sick people, not making those who treat them […]
As medicine becomes more complex and the dictionaries of disease become libraries, it’s time for us to change our clinical language. We have a duty to explain the complexities of our treatments to payers, patients and communities in the simplest, most understandable and up-to-date way possible. Some diseases have the audacity to remit and then […]
Well, not exactly but disease should be dead and treatment should be reigning. In the 21st century, as we delve into the minutiae the body, the smaller we can see, the more we describe and define. But by using old methods of disease description we continue to differentiate rather than unify concepts and this results […]
The Thinker 