All eyes are on the World Cup in South Africa as some of football’s most-watched players are nursing injuries that will likely keep them out of play.

Michael Ballack, Germany’s captain, is suffering torn ligaments in his right ankle; Ghana’s Michael Essien and Nigeria’s John Obi Mikel are out with knee injuries, as is Spain’s top striker, Fernando Torres.

Most of these players’ injuries will probably cause them to miss the tournament, which began on June 11. But for players whose cartilaginous injuries place them on the borderline between fit and sidelined, some sports physicians are increasingly looking to injectable treatments

Read the full article HERE

”Hidden among the millions of vuvuzela-blowing spectators in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup games may be a surprising number of medical and scientific researchers: The tournament has attracted not merely die-hard fans but people interested in the physics, physiology, psychology, and even epidemiology of the globally beloved sport.”

Read the full article HERE

What’s it all about?

 As you may already know, Elsevier is the largest publisher of Medical, Dentistry, Nursing and Allied Health titles in the world today. We publish books and electronic resources under the imprints which include Mosby, Churchill Livingstone, Saunders and Butterworth-Heinemann to name a few.

As a student representative (or “rep”) you will be able to get directly involved in the whole of the publishing process – from early project development right through to spreading the word about new titles on publication. The programme is designed to enable us to better understand your course trends and your textbook and courseware needs, as well as those of your lecturers and course directors. With your co-operation and feedback we hope to get a better idea of which products you like, which you don’t and how you think things could be improved in the future. After all you are the people who are using the books! It also gives us a better indication of how we might get closer to your institution community through events and activities for which our support/involvement may be appropriate.

What’s the deal?
The Student Rep Programme is designed to help you specifically with your studies as well as being of benefit to Elsevier. The minimum commitment we ask is a few hours of your time each academic year and in return you will receive your choice of FREE textbooks from our extensive list of publications up to the value of £50. There is also opportunity to earn extra points (which can also be converted into books) on a monthly basis through responding to ‘Tasks’ sent via our monthly email communication and by doing additional activities such as focus groups, writing book reviews, generating word of mouth etc. But that’s not all, we are always open to suggestions and new ideas and really encourage innovation in the scheme so feel free to come to us with your idea’s no matter how outlandish that may seem! Also, perhaps you would be interested in seeing what we do, student reps have had the opportunity to take part in research, focus group events and present at Elsevier sales conferences. We are also happy to provide a letter for your portfolio to outline your involvement with the scheme.

What do I have to do?

To get your first 50 points you need to:
Send us your recommended reading list for this year
Fill in a questionnaire about your university and course
Put up posters and hand out catalogues/flyers

You can also earn extra points by organising other activities

How do I claim my books?

Each quarter you will be sent a statement via email telling you how many points you have earned, you can then make your book selection and send it to d.watkins@elsevier.com and your books will be posted out to you.

Who will be my contact?
Your main contact will be in the Elsevier Marketing Department, is Debs Watkins and you can contec Debs at: d.watkins@elsevier.com, you will also get to know the Elsevier Sales Representative for your institution who will also be in contact with you.

Terms & Conditions

Elsevier reserve the right not to send all the free books in the case of no contribution from a student representative and discontinue the relationship at any point.

The year is from January to December – all points must be claimed in the year they are earned, any points left over at the end of the academic year will be lost.

The maximum points that can be earned in one year is 150, the £50 worth of books given on completion of part on is considered separate from any other points earnings

You cannot combine cash with points so the value of the books you request has to be equal too or less than the number of points you have accrued. You can only claim your books on a quarterly basis, you can carry points over during the year.

Tasks cannot be started without the permission of your Elsevier contact. No points will be given for tasks carried out with out the agreement of Elsevier.

By sending us your book reviews you are consenting to allow any part of it to be used in promotional material.

Rivka a French student living just outside Paris is looking to flat swap with a London student in a few months time. If this intereste you you can get in touch with Rivka here: desimeur.rivka@laposte.net

These pictures were forwarded to us by Professor Kumar herself. I’d give 10 out of 10 for effort to these fantastically creative med students from Sheffield: Emily & Teja who recreated Kumar & Clark 6/e with just a few bits of cardboard, a couple of felt tipped pens and some sticky backed plastic. Amazing effort ladies, just look at that detail. If anyone has similar homages to any of our books please feel free to send into d.watkins@elsevier.com . Also if you want to let us know how you feel about K & C don’t forget that you can let us know here

Hello all,

We thought that you might be interested in a podcasted chapter from Kumar & Clark’s Clinical Medicine 7/e that has been created for us very kindly by Ed Wallitt at podmedics . The chapter is on Multiple Sclerosis click here to enjoy

Poems begin each

Issue of JAMA, which is

An uncommon start.

Not always great but

Doesn’t mean health poems

Can’t inspire doctors.

Winners of a contest

Of online haikus are

Found by clicking here.

People throughout the ages have forged group identities by use of their own mannerisms and development of their own slang. Understand what people were saying and communicating with them was a sign of membership of a group. These terms would not find their way into dictionaries as they were not in common use, so it was not possible to look up what they meant. Now anyone can log onto sites like Urban Dictionary and look up such definitions as Selected Fatigue Syndrome.

Fatigue which is used as an excuse when one does not want to perform undesirable tasks such as work.

My co-worker claimed her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome kept her from coming to work, but she had no problems making it to the nightclubs. What she really has is Selective Fatigue Syndrome.

I remember being told by a sociologist in a lecture at some point that medicine is seen by some as a sub-culture in itself. It’s easy to become completely lost in jargon. For this reason, SlangRN.com has been set up to serve as an Urban Dictionary of medicine. Words like donorcycle are defined, but several of the terms from the House of God are thankfully absent.

Phillip von Hohenheim was born with quite a good name in 1493, but it wasn’t quite good enough. He adapted the fairly amazing name Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim before the less impressive Paracelsus. This was just making the point that he was as good as, or perhaps better, than Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the Roman author of De Medicina.  Whether or not he was in fact better than Celsus is contentious, but he was quite an innovative doctor at the time. He has been called the father of toxicology for his dictum “All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous”. Rarely has this been illustrated so well by this parable from The Sun:

A HORRIFIED mother condemned teachers after her 14-year-old son nearly died when he overdosed — on NICOTINE GUM.

Today Aiden’s mum Caroline, 36, called for the gum to be banned in school after her son’s hospital overdose ordeal.

Just goes to show, you can’t be too careful, and that even the safest medications have dangers.

The General Medical Council inspects each UK medical school in what is known as the QABME (Quality Assurance of Basic Medical Education) cycle. The result of this decides on whether or not a medical school is allowed to remain awarding medical degrees, so it is something they tend to take quite seriously. They are measured against the standards set in Tomorrow’s Doctors, the guide to undergraduate education produced by the GMC. This information is in the public domain and can be found here.