The photo on the left is from @bad_diabetic, and I think many of you may have seen it by now. It represents a years worth of twice-daily insulin injections. It’s striking, isn’t it? (When you add to that the 5-6 daily load of many regimes, it becomes worse.) Looking from across the bridge, from the […]
Category: practice of medicine
Guest Blog: When it all backfires
Although vaccines are probably one of the most effective public health interventions to reduce mortality and morbidity, it’s apparent that vaccine ‘scares’, often fueled by mass-media have caused some parents to question their value and safety. Wile we paediatricians try hard to keep vaccination rates up, we don’t know how effective are our messages or […]
Guest Blog: My campaign for free-range consultants
You may not have noticed, but there was a subtle shift in Britain’s food a couple of years ago. After many years of campaigning, most notably on the telly by bucolic chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall but also by such animal welfare luminaries as PETA and Compassion in World Farming, the UK finally got rid of battery […]
What’s in a name?
A guest post from @tweediatrics. Last week, a discussion surfaced on Twitter regarding the use of “affectionate” names with patients. It started from this, tweeted by an A+E consultant in the UK: “Colleague disciplined for calling a 90 yr old lady ‘my dear’ & ‘darling’. She had no issues with them. Are we being too PC? […]
If the patient knows more than you do …
I spend some of my time working in a hospice for children and young people, and much of that time I know I am looking after patients who, themselves or their parents, know more about their condition than I do. Dealing with this – when I’m asked to review someone who has something I know I should […]
Guest Post. Positive feedback
It seems almost every day that a negative healthcare story makes its way into the headlines; missed diagnoses; missed opportunities; repeated failings that suggest a lack of learning from previous serious incidents. While the issues raised by these stories may be significant, the articles rarely present a balanced account. The distorted information is presented for […]
What’s the core of your doctoring?
Imagine you are a US marine – and your colleague in enemy territory has captured an insurgent and was holding a gun to his head, threatening to shoot the unarmed prisoner. As retweeted by our E&P Editor @ian_wac, there’s already an excellent blog on this but the answer is – probably – to shout “Marines […]
Domestic abuse. When did you last ask?
The Hideout has been promoting the voice of young people who have been subject to abuse in ways that young people can engage and understand; it’s a branch of the Women’s Aid charity in the UK who have been active in domestic violence support and prevention for over 30 years. […]
Pilgrimage
Photo from Peter Harrison on Flickr Most communities will have one, two, or more campaigns running to raise money for a child with a health concern. It might be a cancer, a chronic disability or a neurodegenerative condition. The campaign is not for a charity which supports children with the condition in general, or research […]
Don’t Forget the Bubbles – new paediatric website
Today saw the launch of Don’t Forget the Bubbles, a new paediatric website. The aim of DFTB is to get more people involved in delivering high quality online education – it’s a collaborative, free, open access (FOAM) resource. The taster content available already gives you an idea of what’s to come. There are useful quick […]