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Warm the cockles with this:

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But we should be proud of the NHS – an American writes:

I think of myself as a pretty well informed person. Not so much when it comes to the issue of healthcare, but I know what's going on in our system even though I avoid doctors of all sorts like the plague itself. But seeing the things that are free in crazy socialized healthcare countries like Canada, France, England and Cuba, it was just astonishing. People would laugh at Moore when asked questions like how much it costs to have a baby in a hospital [answer: $0 in England] or the price of 30 pills opposed to a prescription of 120 [answer: the same under England's NHS].

Learning when England decided to change their healthcare system to a universally covered system was astonishing. It was 1948, just after World War II as most of England was rubble and bankrupt, they decided that no person should go without coverage. Good show.

Philly

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Or maybe not, for another American writes:

This confirmed the report of the Commonwealth Fund's International Working Group on Quality Indicators which found cancer survival rates were lowest in the UK and patients had the longest waits for elective surgery. “Roughly 40 percent of cancer patients never get to see an oncology specialist. Delays in receiving treatment are often so long that nearly 20 percent of colon cancer cases considered treatable when first diagnosed are incurable by the time treatment is finally offered”

Look before we leap into socialized medicine

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TOP LEVEL wanker of the week

An award granted to the writer of this

Read the extraordinary correspondence here.

Maybe it is all justified. Maybe. But foul mouthed ad hominen abuse is something one would more normally associate with drunken white van drivers.

You would not catch Tom doing this, however strongly he felt.

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The crux of the matter

This 'dumbing down' debate is an interesting one, and it certainly has the potential to get pretty emotional and messy. I felt the need to clarify my position as some people feel the strange desire to distort things in a way that stifles a proper discussion.

The ferret in trouble

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Help.

Dr Crippen is completly baffled. Can anyone explain what this is about?

And who is Oona? I don’t know her.

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MMR trouble approaching

Oh dear, Wakefield is back, this time with Patrick

Part 1

Part 2

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List of nursing diagnoses in Wikipedia

Read it quickly as it may not be there long. And share your thoughts.

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion.

Wikipedia

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A new medical student

There is no doubt in my mind that applying to medical school was the single most coveted and stressful thing I’ve encountered in my life. A transitory paradise was reached April 26th 2007 – the day I got into Barts. For me this was fleeting – I hadn’t secured my place until I met my offer. From then on I was elated, knowing that all I had to do was turn up in September and start to learn medicine.

Unprotected Text

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Partial Birth Abortion May Soon Be a Reality In Northern Ireland.

…a process whereby a child is aborted (read “murdered”) as it is being born. If you think this is too horrific even for abortionists to stoop too, it has been going on in America for years.

Hidden Ireland

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More insight from across the pond

Socialized medicine? What are the pros and cons?
One only has to listen to the talking heads, read the newspaper, surf the net - particularly the medical blogs at any given time or work in the medical field to know that we are in a health care crisis in America.

It’s wonderful life

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Which bring me to this patronising effort from today’s Indy:

Obese people twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor- Published: 29 June 2007

Britain’s obesity explosion could trigger a second even more serious epidemic - of dementia. Experts warned yesterday that our fondness for fast food and resistance to exercise was not only causing waistlines to bulge - it is also damaging our brains.

Obesity is bad for you. This is well established.

It increases your risk on winding up with all manner of nasty shit, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, gallstones, hernias, fatty liver disease, renal failure, osteoarthritis, stokes, that most people would much rather not have to deal with.

But clearly none of shit is scary enough to stop people pigging out at Maccy D’s, so now the ‘experts’ are wanting to tack going doolally-tap on to the list to make the whole business ever scarier.

Dumbing down dementia from the Ministry of Truth

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TIME TO ADDRESS THE FEMINISATION OF THE MEDICAL WORKFORCE

Indeed, The Witch Doctor would go as far as to say that along with the European Working Time Directive, and an ageing population, feminsation of the medical workforce is the thrust behind MTAS/MMC, Agenda for Change, the introduction of the National Practitioner Escalator, the Expert Patient, and indeed almost all aspects of NHS Modernisation.

There is a major problem!

The Witch doctor

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Andrew Wakefield and the death of the MMR debacle

More MMR trouble is brewing

Left Brain/right brain

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Simplicity is the key

Trevor Gay

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Surely not!

Dr Rant loves John Crippen. But occasionally he can be a bit of an old fart.

Dr Rant

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Most people agree that there are too many abortions already.

A doctors' representative body has voted in favour of a reduction in the number of physicians needed to approve abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The British Medical Association approved a call for just one doctor to need to sign the form instead of two as at present. The association's annual conference in Devon, England, rejected a proposal that midwives and nurses should do abortions. [BBC, 27 June] Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: "The call for abortion to be made more freely available in early pregnancy is inept. This would lead to even greater pressure on women, with less opportunity for them to reflect before making a decision, and therefore will lead to greater numbers of abortions. Most people agree that there are too many abortions already.

Catholic Action UK

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The DK and Dr Rant

Exactly what are your qualifications to give an opinion on health policy, DK? How about you shut the fuck up about things about which you are, frankly, ignorant, and stick to euro-bashing.

There's a good Devil.

The Devil is being a tosser

Dr Rant

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“Poor” old Patricia

Ministers Severance Payments.
Generally, 3 months of annual ministerial salary is payable when a minister ceases to hold office. Full details are set out in section 4 of the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 [PGA 1991 chapter 5], as amended. A Cabinet Minister’s salary is currently just under £140,000, so that severance payment is around £35k.

Quite why any Minister - never mind one who has proven to be an incompetent dolt in office - should pocket that sort of money while still taking an MP’s salary of £60,675 is beyond my ken.

Patricia Hewitt is also entitled to all the other MP’s perks - including the £22,000 “Additional Costs Allowance” a year available to nearly all MPs for accommodation which many use to buy flats in Central London. These flats - purchased using taxpayers’ money - are not returned to the taxpayer when the MP leaves Parliament.

The Wardman Wire

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Congenial well paid job for doctors on the dole

"RemedyUK are looking for doctors with local connections to either of these two constituencies to stand as candidates to highlight the threats to the NHS. If 'your' doctor fills that criterion and would like to find out more, do get in touch."

Vicky Ford

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Abortion reform

UK doctors have voted that women should no longer be required to obtain the consent of two doctors in order to have an abortion. Currently, two doctors must agree that continuing the pregnancy poses a greater threat to the woman’s physical or mental health than terminating it. This has been a serious barrier for many women,

Feminist philosophers

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The obese orthopod – BMI > 50

Fascinating story of orthopaedic surgeon who has gastric banding.

Chris Oliver

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The most selfish patient ever

Just how selfish would you need to be to think "That Dr McCann's a right selfish fuck. He might think that having his 4 year old daughter kidnapped, with no idea of whether she is alive or dead or having who-knows-what done to her at this very moment by some sick bastards, but what does he know about pain? I had my appointment for my ingrown toenail cancelled because of his slack attitude

Dr Rant

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What are the five worst things that Patricia Hewitt did?

For the last two years, the NHS has been in the hands of a complete and utter failure. Her tenure as Secretary of State for Health has been an unmitigated disaster for the health service. Just as she finished her role as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by decimating the MG-Rover workforce, so shall her term end with large numbers of junior doctors, nurses and midwives seeking a job. So, what was so bad about her time in office? Here is Dr Rant's top five...

So much choice, but do you agree with Dr Rant?

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An auxiliary’s tale

I am currently on "nutter watch". This is a name I have given the shift myself, since I have had to seclude myself down on the far end of the ward, alone, to make sure a certain patient doesn't keep getting out of bed and wandering around.

Quite how she is still awake I have no idea. She's been given enough temazepam to knock out a small elephant.

The Oracle

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Congenial well paid job for doctors on the dole

We all wish to know what the GMC gives its workers after they have taken the £290 off us. Its more perks than a junior doctor gets really, isn't it? They all get free gym membership and a few other things. Indeed, I have today applied to the GMC as the NHS whistleblower.

How the GMC spends our money

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Exam results time

On another note, results came out on the 21st and were quite disappointing. I passed overall, but….

Short white coats

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LondonMedicGirl is a 24 year old, slightly ambivalent, female medical student at a London teaching hospital. She doubts her vocation weekly, if not daily

Yesterday I spent a considerable amount of my time actually working- I even decided to do a bit more work post-bath while I had hot chocolate! Admittedly I did also manage to watch a rather significant number of episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” in between all that concientiousness, but still- WORK!!

LondonMedicGirl

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When should doctors do home visits?

I am quite happy to agree in theory that patients should only be visited at home if they are truly housebound or are terminally ill. That is certainly the view of our keen young partner. But in practice I am inclined to be a bit more accommodating about visit requests, perhaps thinking back to how things used to be. Some of my other partners feel this even more strongly than I do, and this is one of the sources of discord within the partnership.

A Fortunate Man

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Hello Doctor

So I sat in the Surgery of the Doctor's, waiting not so patiently. My appointment had been for 9.40, I was still sitting there at 10.30.

One Bear, One Blog

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Waiting

No news from breast screening as yet so I await my mammogram and suppose I'm in a state of limbo really, but as above, life does go on, you can't possibly be wallowing in your troubles every waking minute of every day. I did phone them to say as I work on the hospital site I could take a cancellation virtually at a moment's notice, so we'll see.

Lizzie

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Blogging doctor hopes to be MP

Well - he's finally done it. Gordon Brown has finally acheived his ambition and become Prime Minister. After 10 years brooding in the Treasury, he can now come out of the shadows and show us all what he is made of. I'm not "bovvered" - because we already know what he is made of. He says he will bring in lots of changes. Absolute rubbish. For those of us who work in public services, we know Gordon himself has been directing what we do from the very start of this Government. It is the Treasury-set PSA targets that we have had to work on. The centralised control has been via the grip on financing by targets and dictat from the Treasury.

Rachel Joyce

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MMC and MTAS

Training and the Royal Colleges

The petition

Dr Grumble

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More on McBitch

I swear on my life (and all the lives of the people I love) that I will never, ever become a vicious, sneaky bully like McBitch. And I swear that if I ever find out that someone I know is being bullied, I'll do everything in my power to rectify their situation and make sure they know it isn't their fault.

Hospital Phoenix

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Another day in the life…

Our overpriced, underdelivering, bungling, lying, hopeless "government" lurches through another day:

NHS fiasco leaves 4,000 jobs unfilled:

"The full extent of the junior doctor recruitment crisis was laid bare yesterday after figures showed that thousands of training posts have not yet been filled.

Wat Tyler

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

The BritMeds will now be published on Saturday morning, so please let me have your recommendations by Friday evening latest.