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Mashup Score: 17Scarlett McNally: Acknowledging the dangers of childbirth could be key to fixing maternity services - 1 day(s) ago
I’ll always be grateful to the doctor who delivered my first baby: a kind and skilled obstetric registrar able to analyse the situation and undertake a ventouse extraction. I knew that yoga, breathing, and exercises could help with delivery—but I also knew that things could go wrong, and I wanted the option of medical help if an emergency arose. Childbirth can be dangerous.1 Only 52% of births in England are spontaneous vaginal deliveries, 11% are instrumental births, and 34% are caesareans (most of which are emergencies).2 The Royal College of Midwives encourages all types of birth to be valued, as aiming for a physiological birth “at all costs” can sometimes be unsafe.34 I know from experience the impact that a traumatic delivery can have for mothers, babies, and families. During the paediatric orthopaedic rotation of my general training in orthopaedic surgery, I saw that learning disabilities and physical or developmental disabilities sometimes don’t become apparent …
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
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Mashup Score: 111Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza - 1 day(s) ago
200 days into Israel’s military bombardment and siege of Gaza, we are witnessing the onset of a man made and entirely preventable famine, say Sameer Sah and Khaled Dawas In December 2023, we led Medical Aid for Palestinians’ (https://www.map.org.uk/) and the International Rescue Committee’s first emergency medical team in Gaza. On that trip, three months into Israel’s bombardment and siege, we saw the disturbing and shocking conditions that Palestinians were forced to live in. We have seen the warning signs of the current hunger crisis for months. In December 2023, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that famine would occur if Israel’s assault on Gaza continued.1 In January 2024, doctors volunteering for Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza reported seeing signs of serious malnutrition in both children and adults.2 Then in February, the World Health Organization warned that the decline in the nutrition status of the population in Gaza was unprecedented3—people were
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Mashup Score: 10
On 12 March the General Medical Council (GMC) published Our Vision for the Future of Medical Education and Training .1 This was accompanied by an explanatory blog from Colin Melville,2 the GMC’s medical director and director of education and standards, in which he queried whether the current system of undergraduate and postgraduate medical training was “fit for purpose” and suggested that “medical education needs transformation.” An enthusiastic and uncritical endorsement was published the next day by the three Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.3 Readers might wonder why this “vision” is even worthy of comment. But, as with so many policy documents that pass by the attention of jobbing clinicians busy with patient care, both the policy statement and the accompanying blog bear further scrutiny. The GMC outlines changes in three key areas of undergraduate and postgraduate training: Superficially, this all seems completely reasonable. The teaching of doctors h
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Mashup Score: 97
Only two years ago when we were looking to add to our team of doctors, we had just a handful of applicants. Other practices nearby had to do several rounds of recruitment before being able to appoint. Up and down the country the story was the same: there simply weren’t enough doctors. Now we’ve moved from a situation of not enough GP applicants for advertised posts to one of intense competition for jobs. It’s not that there’s been a sudden influx of qualified GPs—in fact their number hasn’t shifted, despite an increase in both population and need.1 What has happened is that the …
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
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Mashup Score: 97
Only two years ago when we were looking to add to our team of doctors, we had just a handful of applicants. Other practices nearby had to do several rounds of recruitment before being able to appoint. Up and down the country the story was the same: there simply weren’t enough doctors. Now we’ve moved from a situation of not enough GP applicants for advertised posts to one of intense competition for jobs. It’s not that there’s been a sudden influx of qualified GPs—in fact their number hasn’t shifted, despite an increase in both population and need.1 What has happened is that the …
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
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Mashup Score: 34Why WHO changed the definition of “airborne transmission” in the wake of the pandemic - 1 day(s) ago
After the confusion of 2020, WHO has finally changed its definition of how diseases can spread through the air. But what is the new definition—and what needs to happen next? Mun-Keat Looi reports In the spring of 2020, as covid-19 took hold, confusion reigned among scientists, doctors, public health experts, and others. Many insisted the spread of the new virus was through the air, yet the World Health Organization refused to use the terms “airborne” or “aerosol”1 in the context of covid-19 until 2021.2 This had repercussions as the world debated mask wearing (and what types of masks were suitable) and whether indoor spaces were a factor in infection. Now, four years later and after two years of deliberation by experts,3 WHO has altered its definition of the “airborne” spread of infectious pathogens in the hope of avoiding the confusion and miscommunication that characterised the first year of the pandemic—and threatened attempts to control the virus’s spread. Until now, WHO had called
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Mashup Score: 15What will it take for a new sanitary revolution in the UK? - 3 day(s) ago
Sanitation is an essential public health service, so where is the outrage at the pollution of England’s waterways, ask these authors Recently the dire state of the UK’s rivers was highlighted once again when rowers in the annual Oxford vs Cambridge boat race were taken unwell. They criticised the levels of sewage and high rates of e-coli in the river Thames.1 The organisers of the boat race declared “bathing is prohibited” and warned against throwing the cox into the water as is tradition.2 It had echoes of a visit that Queen Victoria made to Cambridge University back in 1843. Gwen Reverat, a local historian recounts: “ There is a tale of Queen Victoria being shown over Trinity by the Master, Dr Whewell, and saying, as she looked down over the bridge: ‘What are all those pieces of paper floating down the river?’ To which, with great presence of mind, he replied: ‘Those, ma’am, are notices that bathing is forbidden.’” 3 But maybe we need to cast our minds back to the time of Queen Victo
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Mashup Score: 16Toxic household exposures in children - 3 day(s) ago
### What you need to know Poisoning is a leading cause of unintentional injury in children worldwide accounting for 11% of all unintentional injuries in children under 15 years old.1 Fatal poisoning rates are four times higher in low and middle income countries compared with high income countries.1 Across Europe, agents most commonly ingested include medications and household products.2 In the UK, poisoning is the third most common cause of injury related admission to hospital, equating to around 4000-5000 admissions per year (box 1).1011 Most children ingesting poisonous substances do not require hospital admission, and many can be managed at home or in the community.11 However, these decisions require adequate clinical assessment and access to appropriate information on the chemicals involved. This article offers an approach to assessing a child with suspected exposure to toxic household chemicals for those working in community settings. Box 1 ### Rise in poisoning from household exp
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Mashup Score: 9Democratic Republic of the Congo: a strengthened response to mpox could help revitalise the country’s healthcare system - 3 day(s) ago
Over the past year, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has grappled with the largest outbreak of mpox in the past half century. Despite obstacles, an enhanced response to the crisis can provide a blueprint for fortifying the healthcare system Since 1 January 2023, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reported over 13 000 suspected cases of mpox and more than 600 deaths, marking the region’s largest recorded outbreak.1 Cases have been documented across 22 of DRC’s 26 provinces, including major outbreaks in urban areas like Kinshasa and Goma.1 Although the clade I mpox virus has been endemic to central regions of DRC since the 1970s, a new, mutated strain of the virus known as clade Ib was reported in Kamituga in April 2024 and has alarmed global experts with its enhanced transmissibility and ability to evade detection by some tests.2 Researchers attribute the recent rise in mpox cases and spread of the new clade Ib virus to sexual transmission among key populations such as m
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Mashup Score: 93Taking racism out of clinical guidelines - 3 day(s) ago
Guidelines should be reviewed to identify inappropriate use of race and ethnicity Health systems continue to grapple with the deeply rooted consequences of systemic racism within healthcare. The immediacy of this challenge is evidenced in the recent Whitehead report,1 published in the UK, which highlights ethnic inequalities arising from the design and calibration of medical devices. Internationally, race and ethnicity remain common clinical discriminators for guiding decisions within medical guidelines. Alongside efforts to identify and tackle racial inequalities associated with medical devices, health systems globally need to urgently review the appropriateness of using ethnicity to guide treatment decisions and to critically re-examine the rationale for using race or ethnicity as a clinical tool. Race and ethnicity are constructs shaped by social and political factors with almost no biological basis. Historically, medicine has often attributed differences observed in ethnic minority
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
"Families and the public purse are already paying the price of under-resourced maternity care." Acknowledging the dangers of childbirth could be key to fixing #maternity services, says @scarlettmcnally https://t.co/ISyabCwKrz