The BritMeds 2007 (15)

The BritMeds are published a little earlier this weekend as Dr Crippen is away tomorrow.

This week’s selection is dedicated to the Secretary of State for Health who, as a result of yesterday’s story, will henceforth be referred to as Filthy Patricia.

Despite the holidays, a bumper crop of nominations and recommendations have come in over the few days.

First, the best news of the week. Remember Cardiac Arrest? The television medical drama that made ER seem like Watch with Mother? The TV drama that introduced us to the wonderful Helen Baxendale as Dr Claire Maitland? The DVD has finally been compiled and is available from Monday.



Order your copy here today

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I now draw your attention to Dr Aubrey Blumsohn, who writes the “Scientific Misconduct Blog”.

Dr Aubrey Blumsohn

Several of his excellent articles have been recommended, in particular, The mission of a University: Burger Flipping, Tenure, Berkeley and British Petroleum

What happens to a University’s academic agenda and reputation when a big company, like British Petroleum moves in?

For anyone wondering what these sorts of partnerships mean for a university without an academic compass…it is worth remembering what happened to Professor Ignacio Chapela at Berkeley in 2004 when he tried to pubish a Nature article showing that genetically modified corn had contaminated native maize in Mexico - stepping on the toes of a Berkeley-Novartis agreement.

And then Aubrey moves on to Batman and Drug Regulation in the UK

Who is this?

Thank you to the Bitter Pill Blog for pointing out the uncanny resemblance between the Right Honorable Andrew Burnham Minister of State at the Department of Health, and the psychiatrist known as the Scarecrow who works at Arkham Asylum (and has developed fear-inducing toxins) in the recent movie Batman Begins.

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The horrors of female circumcision are still with us in Europe, never mind in the developing world. The author of A Changing Life lives in both England and France, and has just written an article on “The Incredible Melting Condom”

But her main concern is the outrage of female circumcision, and she so she has translated an article from a leading French Blogger :

I’m 30 years old of Senegalese descent and I live in Paris. I have a well paid job which allows me to live comfortably. I live with my partner in the south of the city. When I was 4 my mother had me circumcised. It ruined my life.

The full article is in “My path to renewal”. Those who wish to read it in the original French should look at "Excision: le chemin de ma reconstruction"

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Financial incentives and delighting patients. Is the is the best new way to improve health care?

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More tales from the annals (or should it be anals) of Filthy Patricia.

Money is so tight at the Potters Bar Community Hospital that there is not enough money for basic equipment, according to a source. Do you really want to know where the nurses are going to get their rubber gloves?

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Wendy Fox, 38, lives in south Yorkshire but lived in Lime Avenue, Leftwich, with her parents Keith and Rosalind Mottram and brother Steve. She is now suffering from Lyme Disease, is paralysed from the waist down and has been wheelchair bound for six years. Her heart and liver are damaged.

She is suffering from Lyme Disease. Is the medical profession taking enough interest in this condition? Some even deny its existence?

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"A rise in the number of obese patients on wards could be causing thousands of NHS nurses to seek treatment for back pain, according to experts.

But then some good news:

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating.

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Recently MPs awarded themselves a 66% pay rise. While overworked and grossly underpaid nurses got an insulting 1.9%. How is it the Government can afford to give themselves payrises and not key workers? I feel the nurses fully deserve it

Please sign the following petition now:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Give Nurses a Payrise in line of that of MPs.

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"Its important for doctors to be controlled by fear so no one challenges our authority. Only Field Fisher Waterhouse know where all the skeletons are hidden and how many doctors lives we have ruined. No one else should ever know" GMC's Unpublicised Regulation

"Your powers are weak, whistle blower

Some sage advice from Rita to any doctor who is thinking of whistle blowing about experiences in the NHS.

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If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear… UK Liberty looks at medical confidentiality.

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Another little health care cut from Filthy Patricia. Why? Probably because she is frightened of independent advice given by independent professionls. She cannot control what they say.

Big mouth strikes again says:

When I was deciding whether or not to have back surgery, I relied heavily on BestTreatments and its sister site, ClinicalEvidence.com. Both sites come from the British Medical Journal, and they’re rare in health sites in that they don’t have an agenda, they’re not trying to flog you stuff and they don’t reprint pseudo-scientific bullshit. Instead, they take a simple formula: here’s what we know works, here’s what might work, and here’s stuff that there’s no evidence for whatsoever.

And now, they’re disappearing behind subscriber-only walls because the Department of Health isn’t willing to fund them any more.

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News of Filthy Patricia’s plan to give all British Women the “right” to a home birth reaches the USA in “British Battle Royal”


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A psychiatrist from the Maudsley writes:

Being black in Britain is bad for your mental health

I have had problems being a psychiatrist since the first day I worked in the Maudsley hospital. The Maudsley is in south London, and every day I saw more and more young people of African and Caribbean origin developing serious mental illnesses.

As a young black man I identified with them, found it disturbing, and vowed to do something about it: so I started research in the area. Unfortunately, that made things worse rather than better; partly because the statistics are so chilling, and partly because of the response to them.

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Oh dear, this writer is worrying about Dr Crippen’s mental health:

I enjoy reading the NHS Blog Doctor because he's passionate. I feel for him though because I suspect the stress that results when he looks in vain for evidence of caring or logic or good management or good customer service in New Labour's NHS will drive him to an early grave…

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The Girl with the Blue Steth has a thought or five

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"More people in this country are dying than is necessary - this proves it. England is an international disgrace. In the developed world, only North Korea and Turkey, I think, are worse."

Says Aangirfan

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There's been a degree of frantic bleating about the fact that call charges from hospital bedside phones are going up. Admittedly, the amount - 160%, from 10p to 26p a minute - is pretty eye watering, but it's not as if there are no alternatives.

The Welch Family are cross about it discuss alternatives.

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In the BritMeds, Dr Crippen occasionally looks at how others see us. Here is a characteristic article from the USA

All we need to do is look at the UK and Canada where medical care is of mediocre quality, where waiting times are frequently deadly (I've read that the UK's health system actually instructed hospitals to increase waiting times to save money!), and where citizens come to the US for important medical care when they need it urgently and they can afford it. A newly-released poll from England should cause even more worry as we see our elected representatives dip their toes in the dirty water of socialism.

You many not like that. I don't like it. Because of pride, certainly, but also because it is an exaggerated description of the failings of our healthcare sytem written by someone who probably has health insurance and has not a clue about the complete absence of care from which, for example, blacks on the south side of Chicago suffer. It hardly makes a British Citizen feel proud. But we do have problems, that is for sure and, sadly, much of his article is based on the following from the Daily Telegraph.

More than two thirds of doctors says they would not recommend medicine as a career as morale in the health service reaches an "all-time low", according to a survey published today.

More than half of the 14,000 doctors who responded said they felt morale at work was "poor" and in the case of junior doctors "terrible".

And how does Filthy Patricia and her crooked, malodorous, dishonest, mendacious little shit-bag commissars deal with that? Out comes the "sword of truth and trusty shield of fair play":

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Healthcare Commission's latest NHS staff survey indicated that staff remained "generally satisfied".

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Dr Rant, as usual, does not mince his words about Filthy Patricia in “Killing Babies – the ultimate choice”

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Mother of Many says A HOME BIRTH.............NOT A CHANCE!

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And here is another one. Why do we keep hearing stories like this?

A WOMAN who suffered from an undiagnosed illness for 30 years is fighting for treatment. Annette Miller, 50, of Windsor Road, Hebden Bridge, became ill with flu-like symptoms while she was studying for her A-levels. She never recovered and was told by doctors she was suffering from ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome. It was only last year that blood tests revealed she had the rare bacterial infection Lyme disease.

Can anyone explain why the medical profession seems unable to take control of problems of ME and Chronic Lyme Disease?

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So infatuated is New Labour with imposing market "solutions" on everything from education to climate change, that it has actually managed to create a series of market failures. Nowhere is this more apparent than in housing. Its policies have helped drive house prices beyond the reach of most people, put large numbers of people in housing debt and added to homelessness. Even the banks are pointing out how bad things have got. Today the Halifax revealed that public sector workers such as teachers, nurses, and firefighters cannot afford to buy homes in seven out of 10 UK towns.

A World to Win

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Patterns and trends in prostate cancer incidence, survival, prevalence and mortality.

We know already the the UK medical profession is not good at lung cancer. It seems now that the same applies to prostate cancer:

There were wide differences in survival across Europe, with rates in the UK well below the average, but all European rates were far below those in the USA.

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If you have this

Some doctors providing out-of-hours care are being replaced with less qualified nurses and other workers, according to a poll. A survey of 50 primary care organisations found that 19 had already cut the number of doctors they employed out of hours, replacing them with cheaper staff.

Then you get this

Two days later, her condition had deteriorated and she called the local GP out-of-hours service complaining that she had been vomiting a "black tar-like substance" and that she had severe pain, dehydration and constipation. The nurse who took the call said her case was not serious enough to call out the emergency doctor, and advised her to take laxatives for the constipation.

The coroner said the nurse had "totally failed" to deal with the case. "Had Ms Christian been seen by a doctor at this stage ... it is surely inevitable that she would have been admitted," he said. Even at this stage it was likely her life would have been saved, he added.

More dumbing down. Dr Crippen says keep paying your private health insurance – if you can afford it.

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Curly is a well-meaning but naïve blogger who says:

This is simply ludicrous, such iniquities ought not to exist in the National Health Service, if a drug being appraised by NICE (National Institute for for Clinical Excellence) is available on prescription in one part of the U.K., then it ought to be available in every other part of the U.K. The decision to prescribe and pay for certain treatments should be in the hands of specialised consultants, not the offices of technocratic executives. I know that our Member of Parliament, David Miliband reads this blog, (sometimes for light relief) but this is a very serious matter, which I am sure he will do his utmost to resolve.

Of course he will, Curly.

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In HRT PANIC FINALLY LAID TO REST? the author wonders why Dr Crippen is so “indecisive” about HRT.

Because, as I take responsibility for my patients. Because I live in a world of penumbra and indecision. Oh to be a teenager again! If you are interested in HRT, this is what I said.

Compare the two articles and make up your own mind.

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Dr Crippen has just been up there, and is thus obliged to mention the “Save West Cumbrian Hospitals” which is asking : Is the government about to axe the careers of 8,000 junior doctors ?

It is depressingly the same where ever you go in the UK

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Finally, I am just back from a week’s holiday, and cannot face dipping into another week of MMC and MTAS. Normal service will be resumed next week.

So let us end with a few words from Dr Michelle Tempest:

Thought of the week has to be dedicated to NHS staff, who continue to suffer from the unresolved problems regarding doctor specialist training and the lowest level of morale ever reported since the NHS began.

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Please send your recommendations for next week’s BritMeds to: thebritmedsATnhsblogdoc.wanadoo.co.uk