Samantha Roper, 30, is training to be a paediatrician in London. For the last two years, she has also been working in Africa on humanitarian missions for various charities, including a stint as a medical team leader for Medicin Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone running a survivors clinic for Ebola victims. Ebola is a pretty terrifying disease because it […]
Outcomes data is information about the results of surgery that can be published and used by surgeons, patients and hospitals to ultimately improve safety and quality. The government in 2013 made a commitment to produce individual surgeons’ outcome data, from national clinical audits. In 2013, the Royal College of Surgeons published the first set of […]
Antibiotics are over used, many drugs are deemed not to be cost effective or are just too expensive, and staff shortages or limited beds mean there’s often little point in going to hospital, so I consider the best prescription for many illnesses is a good book. Which is exactly why myself and my writing partner […]
On Monday 18th April 2016 the parlous lack of funding for research into brain tumours was the subject of a formal parliamentary debate in the House of Commons. The debate comes after years of lobbying by our partner, charity Brain Tumour Research, culminating in a Government e-petition which gained over 120,000 signatures and the publishing of […]
Read More… from Brain tumours come under the spotlight of parliament
Last month Hillary Clinton took people back more than 30 years when she mis-remembered the policy and personal failures to tackle the then emerging AIDS crisis. Her error has allowed us to remember the many brave people who fought to bring justice, care and compassion to inhumane policy decisions; activists and scientists are the real heroes of […]
Read More… from Britain’s Battles with AIDS – scientists can be rock stars too
Hands are often tell-tale signs of chronological age when other parts of the body, including the face, are more youthful in appearance. The dermal layer of the skin on the back of hands is thinner than that of the face and contains less collagen that the face for example. The hands age more in women […]
Self-harm is when someone deliberately hurts or injures him or herself. This can take a number of forms including: cutting, taking overdoses of tablets or medicines, punching oneself, throwing their bodies against something, pulling out hair or eyelashes, scratching, picking or tearing at one’s skin causing sores and scarring, burning, inhaling or sniffing harmful substances. […]
As part of our regular series on the risks of getting common chronic diseases, we look at COPD. COPD, which affects around 1.4 million people in England, is an umbrella term which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, which are chronic inflammatory conditions of the lungs. It is a life threatening lung disease that interferes with normal breathing […]
As part of our regular series on the risks of getting common chronic diseases, this week we look at your risk of developing dementia. The number of people with dementia is steadily increasing, mainly due to population growth and the fact that people are living longer. Alzheimer’s, which is the major cause of dementia affecting 62 per […]
As part of our regular series on the risks of getting common chronic diseases, we look at the risk of developing arthritis. Disorders of the musculoskeletal system, including osteoarthritis, which is caused by wear and tear on joints over time, (unlike rheumatoid arthritis which is an autoimmune disorder meaning the body attacks its own joints) becomes progressively […]