The Registrar of The University of Birmingham has emailed all its students letting them know that a working group has been set up to monitor the situation. This team is meeting daily to monitor the situation.  The University has proactively responded to concerns by setting up a website and a dedicated email address. The website with updates is actually easier to read than the BBC’s version. There have now been confirmed cases in the North and South of England, but not in the Midlands as of yet. The webpage and emails do not identify any member. It is unclear how many of them come from a background in the media, how many  are administrators, and how many come from an epidemiology or healthcare background.

Don’t worry it’s not a test, but there are some questions… We would like you to take our Quick Questionnaire  (3 mins tops). What’s in it for you?  You get to let us know what you think of our products and as a thank you for your time and help we will enter you into a prize draw to win £100 of Elsevier textbooks of your choice (closing date 31st May). Thanks guys and good luck!

Introducing: Dr Alastair Innes, editor of Davidson’s Essentials of Medicine Edinburgh born and trained, Alastair has done his fair share of working in other great cities such as: Newcastle, London and even Los Angeles. But it would seem that all roads lead to Edinburgh where Alastair returned to his present job as a chest physician in 1993. He has special interests in lung physiology and cystic fibrosis, and is involved in the UK Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy Consortium research programme.

There’s no rest for the busy and Alastair has a very full life outside of work enjoying music, sailing and tinkering with anything, especially his 35 year old Triumph TR6, which he bought second hand as a houseman. He is also married with three children but still finds time to edit books, for which we at the Naked Truth are very grateful!

Alastair told us that ‘’The Davidson’s Essentials project was a real challenge; ‘as a Scot I like the idea of “distilling” the information in the parent book into something that packs value (and punch) into a small and portable format. What better than sitting in a comfy chair by the fire with Essentials? – after all it is lighter than a laptop!’’

Take a look at a sample chapter of the book here and let us know what you think. Enjoy!

Sometimes the best ideas begin as spoofs.  Mary Wollstonecroft wrote cogently on the inequalities extent in contemporary society in A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1790 and 1792 respectively.  Thomas Taylor parodied these ideas in his book A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes.  Peter Singer was entirely serious in 1975 when he wrote Animal Liberation, which contained many of the same ideas. 

Robert Popper has pointed out that Medibot from Look Around You seems to be entering clinical practice in the form of the da Vinci Surgical System.  Families of medicines commonly begin life as analogues of substances found in nature.  Penicillins and statins were first discovered being produced by Penicillium fungi; aspirin is based on a substance found in willow bark.  Researchers looking for the next big thing in medical technology may decide that there are better places to look for ideas than comedy on television, but the nature of a Eureka moment dictates that you do not know when it is going to come or where you are going to find inspiration.

After the success of his TED talk Hans Rosling and colleagues have produced a series of videos titled Gapcasts on Global Health issues. The most recent concerns how much life expectancy has changed worldwide in the last 200 years. Humbling to think how modest the effect of health care is.

Link

UKFPO has announced that South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire and East Coast will be combining into one Foundation School for 2010 foundation school recruitment. This adjustment has been made after North Yorkshire failed to fill all its spaces this year, even after headroom for applications was cut from 10% to 5% this year. This means that there were 5% more jobs for first-year doctors this year than there were final year students in the UK. Hopefully headroom will not be cut further this year, as of 2006 UK medical students are no longer guaranteed jobs as doctors.

Well I stumbled up to my haematology placement today. 3 weeks of it. I was very keen and excited at the prospect of possible finally understanding this topic.

Now at 930pm as I read about haematology I’m thinking OMG… where do I start, where do I begin? It is such a huge topic..

Any thoughts?

This weekend I got to experience the NHS as a patient after lacerating my leg on something while paintballing.

A&E

Wound cleaning

Surgery

Food

Waiting

Thankyou

Channel 4 News on the implications of the 48-hour working week being brought in for UK doctors thanks to the European Working Time Directive (via RemedyUK). The Royal College of Surgeons of England speaks out. It’s unclear why the European directive applies to the UK and not all countries which in the Europe Union.