Medical Practice
'Weekend effect' linked to admission habits of junior doctors
November 13th, 2019 A UK study suggested that the "weekend effect" of increased hospital mortality was driven by junior doctors admitting a lower proportion of relatively healthy patients at the weekend compared with the weekday, thus diluting the risk pool of weekday...
Solutions to physician burnout — US National Academy of Medicine report
November 6th, 2019 In response to concerning rates of burnout among US clinicians and trainees, the National Academy of Medicine has published a report that aims to find solutionsby shifting focus away from the individual and by proposing systemic changes in...
AI 'at best' on a par with human experts when making image-based diagnoses - review
October 9th, 2019 Artificial intelligence (AI) is "at best" on a par with human experts when it comes to making medical diagnoses based on images, that a review has found. The potential for artificial intelligence in healthcare has caused excitement, with...Women dying from heart attacks because of failure to recognise symptoms
Women who suffer heart attacks are dying needlessly because they fail to recognise their symptoms and receive poorer care than men, BBC News reports a British Heart Foundation study says. Over 10 years, more than 8,000 women in England and Wales...
Registrar burnout at Wits far exceeds international norms
September 25th, 2019 More than that 80% registrars at the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Clinical Medicine suffer from burnout, a response to prolonged stress, with “extremely high” levels of depersonalisation, affecting professional response to...
Hearing aids linked to reduced risk of mental decline and falls but few get them
September 18th, 2019 Hearing aids are associated with significantly reduced risk of physical and mental decline, although only 12% of those formally diagnosed with hearing loss actually acquire the devices, a large a University of Michigan analysis shows. Older...
Should doctors should accept unvaccinated children as patients?
August 28th, 2019 Four in 10 parents say they are very or somewhat likely to move their child to a different provider if their doctor sees families who refuse all childhood vaccines, according to a US national poll. Most children in the US receive recommended...
More than one in 20 hospital patients affected by preventable harm
July 24th, 2019 More than one in 20 (6%) of patients are affected by preventable harm in medical care, of which around 12% causes permanent disability or death, finds a large UK study. Most preventable harm relates to drug incidents and invasive procedures and it...
Most UK patients now unable to see their preferred GP
July 17th, 2019 Most patients in the UK who want to see their own GP can no longer get an appointment with them. The Daily Telegraph reports that this is according to figures suggesting the days of the family doctor are over. The statistics show record numbers of...
Medical 'selfies' can improve the doctor-patient relationship
July 3rd, 2019 Patients taking medical “selfies” and sharing them with their doctor empowers and reassures healthcare consumers, and can improve doctor-patient relationships, a two-part study led by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane,...
UK medical schools fail to provide adequate training on eating disorders
June 26th, 2019 A study of all Britain's medical schools has revealed that medical students receive less than two hours of training on eating disorders over four to six years of undergraduate study, which experts and the UK’s eating disorder charity Beat warn is...
Tele-medicine preferred to in-person appointments — US study
May 22nd, 2019 Nine out of 10 people who had a virtual visit with a doctor said it was more convenient than other ways of getting care, and it addressed their medical needs, found a Kaiser Permanente study. Only four in 10 said they would prefer an in-person...
GPs seeing twice as many patients as safe-limit — UK survey
May 15th, 2019 GPs in the UK are seeing up to 60 patients a day, double the number they consider safe, as services struggle with staff shortages and a rising demand for care. The Guardian reports that the findings of a survey of family doctors prompted a warning...
'I’m afraid I have some bad news...'
May 15th, 2019 Both researchers and medical schools have tried to figure out how doctors should communicate with patients to deliver hard-to-swallow information. There is little evidence that they are getting it right. “I’m afraid I have some bad...
Anti-vaxxers target doctors on social media and rating websites
May 15th, 2019 More doctors are being attacked online for recommending parents vaccinate their children as part of a coordinated effort by anti-vaccine groups. Fictitious patient reviews are just one tactic. Dr Monique Tello was attending a medical conference...