Diagnostic studies are abundant, but I continue to be amazed that senior researchers often write about things like “specificity” and “sensitivity” as if they are not context-dependent. […]
Month: June 2007
Lancet 16 Jun 2007 Vol 334
In the stories of Russia 120 years ago, by Turgenev, Chekhov and Tolstoy, there is a recurring scene: the landowner or his bailiff meets a crowd of discontented peasants and […]
Arch Intern Med 11 Jun 2007 Vol 167
The kidney is really just a sophisticated extension of the cardiovascular system, and in end-stage cardiac disease, measures of renal function provide the strongest prognostic markers (apart from B-type natriuretic […]
Plant of the Week: Geranium x Magnificum
When I first started writing about plants in these reviews, I concentrated on neglected treasures, until a reader complained that he could never find a single plant I described. […]
JAMA 6 Jun 2007 Vol 297
Folic acid is a vitamin which is particularly necessary for fast-dividing cells – which is why we use folate antagonists to kill bacteria and cancers. But it is still a […]
NEJM 7 Jun 2007 Vol 356
Using traditional British medical metaphors for rarity, you could call this week’s NEJM the Hen’s Dental Journal (or indeed The Rocking Horse’s Lavatory). It had me sweating back on Nightmare […]
BMJ 9 Jun 2007 Vol 334
Nothing illustrates the abasement of primary care in the UK better than the saga of chronic kidney disease and the estimation of glomerular filtration rate. On the flimsiest clinical evidence […]
Lancet 9 Jun 2007 Vol 369
“Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” is a phrase the teachers of my youth liked to use (it comes from Cranmer’s Collect for Bible Sunday, in the Book of Common […]
Ann Intern Med 5 June 2007 Vol 146
Another negative trial of homocysteine-lowering therapy: this is a substudy of HOPE-2 and shows that oral supplements of folic acid, pyridoxine and cobalamin lower HCy but do not reduce venous […]
Humanist of the Week: Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
This week’s Annals contain an essay about Montaigne by Alan Wasserstein, entitled “Lessons in Medical Humanism”. Montaigne is generally credited with inventing the literary form called the “essay”, a word […]