The World Health Organisation has outlined what it considers the top issues on the health care horizon for the next decade and beyond. As usual with any large consensus organization, the issues outlined are like spent stars – they were shining brightly once but are probably dead already. Let’s redesign, rename, revamp and reinvest. So , rather […]
Category: Health Advocacy
Now that COVID protocols are easing and face-to-face consultations with our regular physicians are returning, it is a good time for doctors and patients to refresh their commitment to the same vows of care. It is a well-studied adage that patients and doctors are not congruent in their views about what should happen during their […]
It only takes a pandemic to see how countries can use healthcare to reignite flagging nationalism. COVID 19 spawned a new kind of nationalism: vaccine nationalism, the prioritization of the domestic needs of a country over an outlay to others. Even the policies of countries such as Australia and New Zealand, where nationalism is enforced by […]
In the acute phase, men with COVID experience more severe symptoms and higher mortality than women. In that way COVID is no different from many of the viruses that have attacked humans over the last century. The health of women is not just women’s health Men are more attractive to viral infections than women. For example, […]
Time to spin some wishes into reality. Here is my top ten, in no particular order. Share yours in the comments box. Science never turns into science fiction, nor medical evidence twisted into medical factoid. COVID vaccination rates globally reach at least 90%. COVID continues to morph into another influenza – like illness. Public health units […]
As a public health physician, and as a family physician, I am ashamed. In response to COVID, my colleagues in public health officialdom are losing credibility as they search for politically driven quick fixes and remain silent when individual freedoms are restricted without clear evidence of an enduring relationship to positive outcomes. COVID is here […]
Caring for patients over long periods of time starts out as a romantic courtship. Initially, there is wooing. Both parties can do no wrong. New patients are relatively unknown to clinicians and vice versa. The main difference is that clinicians are expected to catalyze some change in patients for the better. After taking a history, doing […]
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 […]
My stethoscope is more than half my age and every year it gets proportionally closer to my age. It doesn’t have an expiration date and works just fine. In fact, not everything in medicine has a short expiration date or is consumable. Despite that, the traditional economy of healthcare is largely disposable. Healthcare materials are taken […]
In the Western world, the festive season is in full swing and our focus remains on food and drink – most of which is not produced locally. Despite our best intentions, our plates around this time of year are crammed with highly refined cheap foods distributed by a small number of producers. Ten food processors […]
There are still not enough women in high level leadership positions in healthcare to cement change which improves the health inequalities for women. Two contradictions hold back many women who try. These are encompassed in what I call reticence. The qualities of nurturing and maintaining harmony keep women feeling comfortable in the thinking of middle […]
Nonmedical drug use (NMPU) is one of the biggest health challenges facing the world today. The reasons for NMPU are highly variable, and to some extent differ according to the class of drug concerned, but the underlying cause is quite clear. The world is often not a happy place and consumers want easy access to […]
Whatever the political divides, citizens worldwide agree that responsible government should provide adequate healthcare for the whole population. Unfortunately, both patients and clinicians often get too subsumed in the weight of immediate crises to agitate beyond their own current concerns. Healthy children can help inject our anemic healthcare systems with new blood. We need to […]
The Thinker 