Scene: the boardroom of a large NHS Trust, somewhere in England. “And so that brings us neatly to the last item on the agenda: passport checks for pregnant women who want a checkup. The thing is, you see, that it turns out that we’ve been providing obstetric care to some women who aren’t actually UK citizens. […]
Category: Curios
No Diagnosis for You, Matey!
Here’s a little amusement for the weekend, from a friend who lives in the States: I received a state of the arts cardio monitor, per a prescription from a cardiologist, to determine if I have an irregular heart beat. All chrome and aluminium and clean and small with various electronic devices to transmit “information” to […]
Writers Whose Expertise is Deplorably Low
Something popped up on my twitter feed the other day: this document from Oxford’s philosophy department. (I’m not sure quite what it is. Brochure? In-house magazine? Dunno. It doesn’t really matter, though.) In it, there’s a striking passage from Jeff McMahan’s piece on practical ethics: Even though what is variously referred to as ‘practical ethics’ or […]
Posted without Comment…
… except to say that (a) if I could have my time again, I’d retrain as a medic and go to work in one of the developed world’s most dysfunctional healthcare systems: (click for bigger) and (b) I’d be grateful that I’m not a woman: (click for bigger) (Source, sourcier, sourciest.) […]
Thumbs Up for Privacy
“Hey, Iain,” says Fran, a Manchester alumna, “What do you make of this?” I won’t bother rehearsing the whole scenario described in the post, but the dilemma it describes – set out by one Simon Carley – is fairly easily summarised: you work in A&E; a patient is rolled in who’s unconscious; there’s no ID, […]
Mature Content?
There’s an aisle at the supermarket that has a sign above it that reads “ADULT CEREALS”. Every time I see it, I snigger inwardly at the thought of sexually explicit cornflakes. (Pornflakes. You’re welcome.) It’s not big, and it’s not clever: I know that. But all these years living in south Manchester have taught me to […]
Stay Classy, BMJ.
Lord only knows, it pains me to jump to George Osborne’s defence – more so by resurrecting a meme that was already past it when I was first invited to run this blog in 2008 – but on this one occasion, I’m going to have to do it. Last week, the BMJ reported about a case in […]
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Here’s an intriguing letter from one John Doherty, published in the BMJ yesterday: Medical titles may well reinforce a clinical hierarchy and inculcate deference in Florida, as Kennedy writes, but such constructs are culture bound. When I worked in outback Australia the patients called me “Mate,” which is what I called them. They still wanted me to be in […]
Pro-Lifers’ Arguments Might be their Greatest Gift to Pro-Choicers
Abortion is always going to be a controversial topic. For what it’s worth, I hold that there’s nothing wrong with it. That’s me speaking from my habitual non-consequentialist position. From a more utilitarian perspective, I’m willing to concede that, given the choice between world A, in which abortions happen, and world B, in which they don’t because […]
On the other hand…
… the phenomenon of apologising for the wrong thing comes alongside people taking umbrage at the wrong thing. Last week, the BMJ ran a head-to-head feature on the “question” of whether doctors should recommend homeopathy. This was the latest in a series of articles in which a question is posed, apparently strictly on the understanding that it’ll accommodate […]