From the Frontlines
‘I gave up medicine to save my mental health’
October 2nd, 2019 Julia Patterson recalls clearly the moment she decided she had to quit two things she treasured – practising medicine and working in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) – in order to safeguard her own mental health. “I loved my job,” she...
Gunshot admissions to Groote Schuur doubled in past 8 years
August 14th, 2019 Massive levels of violence — the number of gunshot wound patients admitted to Groote Schuur has doubled in the eight years — coupled with abusive patients, is taking its toll on medical staff and emergency workers. The Times reports that the...
Trauma surgeons are in the midst of Cape Flats 'bloody civil war'
July 31st, 2019 The bullet-riddled victims who end up on the operating table of seasoned trauma surgeon Professor Andrew Nicol's team at Groote Schuur Hospital are casualties of a bloody civil war playing out on the Cape Flats, reports News24. Up to 90 victims a...
The lullaby singers who bring a human touch to Ebola babies
July 31st, 2019 For a child hermetically sealed in a bio-secure unit, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola treatment centres are a terrifying place to be, reports The Daily Telegraph. However, Ebola survivors, known as lullaby singers, are on hand to...
Hospitals of fear: Police and guards 'run away' during attacks on patients
July 3rd, 2019 Highlighting again the unsafe conditions in SA's public hospitals, police and security guards allegedly fled while a gunshot-wound patient was being violently assaulted. Separately, a gang attack at a Gauteng clinic has caused nurses to refuse to do...
Attacks on doctors highlight security dangers in state hospitals
June 12th, 2019 Free State University has resumed training at a Bloemfontein hospital, briefly suspended over security concerns following an incident where a doctor prevented a rape attempt only by virtually biting off her assailant's tongue. UFS briefly...
Snakebite: 'The world's biggest hidden health crisis'
June 5th, 2019 A crisis in the production of antivenoms is killing tens of thousands of people a year and, reports The Daily Telegraph, scientists are hoping to harness HIV technology to create a universal defence against snake bites. Snakebite is arguably the...
The hidden world of Cuba's 'white coat army'
May 22nd, 2019 Cuba's world-wide deployment of doctors is part of that nation's diplomatic strategy, as well as an annual $8bn economic lifeline. Some of the doctors, however, liken it to slave labour and being a political pawn. BBC News reports that for Dayli...
Rural doctors go the extra mile. Then swim a river
April 3rd, 2019 A Eastern Cape doctor blocked by protestors from reaching patients at a rural clinic hiked for kilometres with 25kg of medicine on his back and then swam across a river to reach them. The Times reports that Dr John Mitchell, 28, has been widely...
Fate of thousands unknown as rescuers struggle to reach Mozambique flood victims
March 27th, 2019 The fate of entire village populations in Mozambique remain unknown as rescue workers try desperately to reach thousands still trapped in rising floodwaters unleashed by Cyclone Idai, reports The Daily Telegraph. Eyewitnesses told of corpses...
Junior doctors lead the push to oust Sudan's dictator
February 20th, 2019 The greatest challenge yet to Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir is not from superpower muscle-flexing or armed rebels but from a popular revolt led by unarmed junior doctors, reports The Daily Telegraph. As the Arab Spring picked off the...
The high cost rare diseases: R54m for one-off injection
December 5th, 2018 The Sunday Times reports on one SA family's journey with their daughter, who has spinal muscular atrophy, trying to access hugely expensive new breakthrough drugs from Biogen and Novartis, for their daughter, who has spinal muscular atrophy...
Containing the Ebola epidemic in the face of armed conflict
November 14th, 2018 ‘I have been responding to different disease outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 18 years, yet I have never seen anything as challenging as containing Ebola in an armed-conflict zone,’ writes Dr Eric Mukama of the aid...
Medical students experience 'considerably' higher rates of sexual harassment
October 31st, 2018 US medical students experience about double the sexual harassment faced by their peers in sciences and engineering, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. A July 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences,...
Giving the past a seat at the table: Saying 'no' to pointless treatment
October 17th, 2018 Medicine is not just about treating illnesses – it often involve understanding the necessity to say ‘no’ to further pointless treatment, writes Dr Lisa Caulley in the New England Journal of Medicine. The sheer speed with which...