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The Irish Medical Times Blog: Observations

All entries for Observations

'I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster'

The doctor who discovered PSA wants to change the way we screen for prostate cancer: "The medical community is slowly turning against P.S.A. screening. Last year, The New England Journal of Medicine published results from the two largest studies... Read more

A new way to rate stories on the web

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Quest and coincidence

On October 15, 2009, Irish Medical Times published this story, in which Mr Robert Quinn, Director, Quest Diagnostics Ireland, said that the opening of a Quest office and incorporation in Ireland "were further confirmation of the company’s long-term commitment to... Read more

Ten funny healthcare stories

A man comes into the ER and yells, ‘My wife’s going to have her baby in the cab!’ I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady’s dress, and began to take off her under-wear. Suddenly I... Read more

Try more sample HPAT questions

As part of IMT's ongoing special report on the HPAT exam, our reporters have brought you more sample questions. See how well you do.... Read more

Furore, sarcasm, a cartoon, the former governor of Alaska, and Down syndrome

When people with disabilities play characters in a sitcoms that lampoon politicians, celebrities, and everyone else on earth, do they automatically lampoon themselves as people with disabilities? In a recent episode of Family Guy, an animated American sitcom known for... Read more

Doctors have communicated with a man in a vegetative state

In what's being called a breakthrough, a man who has been unconscious for five years was able to communicate with doctors using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a type of scan that allowed doctors to detect when the man changed thoughts.... Read more

Lancet retracts Wakefield paper - everybody's happy... or not

The Lancet has now issued a full retraction of the paper, authored by Dr Andrew Wakefield, linking autism and MMR. The text of the retraction is available on the Lancet. Dr Wakefield, who now lives and works in the US,... Read more

At the intersection of medicine and literature...

A blog associated with the NYU School of Medicine is worth some free time, if you can spare it: Literature, Arts & Medicine. From an entry on the literature written by nurses: ...As I see more and more narrative medicine... Read more

Can a website improve your mood?

A new website, Lose the Blues has been launched at University College Cork (UCC) aimed at students experiencing depressive symptoms. The website is designed specifically for 18- to 24-year-olds who may be experiencing "low mood to cope with their experiences."... Read more

A psychological game: what font are you?

Take a short psychological test (four questions) and find out what font best portrays your personality, then get a history of that font. You will be prompted for a password after you enter your name. The password is: character (You... Read more

Women of medium height are less likely to be jealous or 'compete intrasexually' with other women

A new study in Evolutionary Psychology has found support for the hypothesis that that women of medium height would show a more secure, long-term mating pattern characterized by less jealousy, less intrasexual competition and a “slower” life history strategy. From... Read more

Neuroticism is a constant predictor of failure in medical students

Might there be a new, better test to predict how people will perform in medical school? The New York Times highlights a new study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, that looks at five different dimensions of personality -... Read more

Should pregnant women get special parking spaces?

The Journal of Medical Ethics blog wonders if giving pregnant women parking spaces is akin to calling pregnancy a disability. Is this "namby pamby" stuff?... Read more

Thousands of Americans 'depressed' and 'suicidal' after watching James Cameron's blockbuster 'Avatar'

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Read an article about the great diarist Samuel Pepys

A fine feature article on the great and unique diarist Samuel Pepys, entitled 'And so to bed...', was published this week in Irish Medical Times. The feature explores the medical aspects of his diary and his life, but has some... Read more

The top five online stories of 2009

Irish Medical Times wishes you a Happy New Year, as normal web updates commence from later today and tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a list of the ten most requested stories (No. 1 being the most requested) on imt.ie from... Read more

Santa should get off his sleigh and walk

Santa should share Rudolf's snack of carrots and celery sticks rather than brandy and mince pies and swap his reindeer for a bike or walk, says a public health expert in the Christmas issue published on bmj.com. From the press... Read more

DJ Hip Op and the silver rappers take the message to the masses for Age Action

Age Action has recruited the services of DJ Hip Op and her rap class for its first YouTube video. From the press release: DJ Hip Op (AKA Marian Kelly) stars in the video “Growing Up Is Optional” teaching a... Read more

The ICGP celebrates 25 years: we have the photos

Photographs from the ICGP's 25th anniversary gala are now available on IMT.ie's Gallery page. Dr Michael Boland was honoured on the night with a career achievement award.... Read more

Watch a video of a virtual autopsy

Brian Herron, in this week's IMT, reports on a new machine from Sweden that could revolutionise virtual autopsy. Watch the videos here: Virtual Autopsies from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter onVimeo. The Virtual Autopsy Table from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.... Read more

Rather than going into shops to buy cigarettes, I might have been hit by a bus

A British man offers his perspective on the warning labels you find on cigarette packs. Beware: you are about to see a man who has dressed himself up as a Confederate soldier. My favorite line: "Most of the oldest people... Read more

'It feels sometimes like the entire world has cancer'

Read an engrossing feature article, from the New York Times, about the world's largest standalone cancer hospital - MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. Some quotes: “If you have a rare tumor, you need to go where tumors are not rare.”... Read more

Photographs of some of the winners of the Irish Healthcare Awards are up in the IMT Gallery

Some photographs of the winners at the recent Irish Healthcare Awards, which took place in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, are available in the IMT Gallery. More to follow soon.... Read more

H1N1, MMR, overcrowding: Do journalists have a duty to tell the truth?

The blog of the BMJ's Journal of Medical Ethics is always worth checking into - complex treatments of apparently simple problems. In the latest entry on the handling, by the press, of the H1N1 virus, the author questions the role... Read more

Do the 'No to Nuts!' posters offend you?

Pro-Lisbon Treaty posters that have gone up recently around Dublin's busiest streets depict a monkey holding a sign that reads: "No to Nuts!" This refers to Cóir, the anti-Lisbon group. From the Irish Times: Cóir’s Richard Greene claimed the posters,... Read more

I wonder if some town hall meetings might help educate the public about H1N1

On today's Irish Times website there's an article saying that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has suggested that children who develop swine flu symptoms should be given a face mask by their parents to help prevent them spreading the... Read more

The IMT photo gallery is up and running again

The world-famous IMT Photo Galley is back! So if you have some time and want to take a look at which colleagues are attending which conferences, or who's winning prizes, or giving speeches, click on the link above, or click... Read more

About 2 per cent of people still believe politicians are ‘trusted professionals’

A new survey has revealed that just over 2 per cent of people believe that politicians are “trusted professionals.” While it might seem strange that anybody believes politicians are trusted professionals, 6 per cent of those surveyed said estate agents... Read more

The Sisyphean struggle of keeping up to date with medical publications

A good quote from the PeerView Institute: "If physicians would read two articles per day out of the six million medical articles published annually, in one year, they would fall 82 centuries behind in their reading." (italics ours) And some... Read more

Depressed and unemployed? Get on yer bike.

During the 1980s, following the riots in Brixton and elsewhere over mass unemployment, the Conservative politician, Employment Secretary and confidant of Margaret Thatcher, Norman Tebbit, was quoted as saying the unemployed should get on their bikes to look for... Read more

Surely the iPhone can revolutionise your work in medicine if...

... the Mentalists can do this with them.... Read more

Distracted Kindergarteners 'become gamblers'

Children rated as impulsive by their kindergarten teachers appear more likely to begin gambling behaviors like playing cards or placing bets before they hit middle school, Canadian researchers have said. The study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine... Read more

That 'rude idiot doctor'

Does the following conversation sound familiar? “Why is it that you both seem so upset?” “You haven’t found out what is wrong with him,” says the brother. “What is it that you believe is wrong with him?” I asked. “I... Read more

Should doctors blog, or is it a violation of ethics?

Mexico Medical Student, a long-running and popular medical blog, defends the right of doctors to publish opinions and musings outside the context of peer-reviewed scholarship. Despite calls by some organisations for stricter rules about blogging ethics, a Medblogger Code has... Read more

Holistic medicine is important; homeopathy is a pile of...

Unprotected Text - a second-year med student and blogger in the UK - offers a lively and spirited critique of homeopathy, which he says has no place in medical school. "I personally believe that homeopathy is by and large a... Read more

Taoiseach and FF suffer in Irish Times poll; FG gains... Why?

The only news anyone is talking about today is the Irish Times poll that shows support for the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil in tatters. It's no surprise to see the popularity of a sometimes-perceived-as-irascible Taoiseach plummet during a recession. What... Read more

You know how they say we only use 10 percent of our brains? I think we only use 10 percent of our hearts

Alcohol reduces brain volume, IMT has reported in its Clinical Times section. “There was a significant negative linear relationship between alcohol consumption and total cerebral brain volume,” the researchers reported. While I've yet to see evidence that reduced brain... Read more

Brian Cowen rides out the storm of protest over budget cuts

A 25-year-old surfer moments before a 12m wave nearly killed him.... Read more

More patients than journalists submit FOI requests

IMT has just reported that 90.1 per cent of all Freedom of Information applications received by the Health Service Executive in 2007 were from patients. Out of about 4,000 requests in 2007, less than 4 per cent came from journalists.... Read more

IMT's US election coverage

Here's a sneak preview of IMT's one and only article about the US election, from the weekly Inside Back column: Hope, change, history, and other things that don’t exist As the world celebrates renewal in America - a country that,... Read more

My Halloween: getting shot at with bottle rockets by teenagers

The HSE and Road Safety Authority (RSA) have warned parents and young people to be extra vigilant when taking part in Halloween activities this evening. For my part, I can say that youngsters are far less likely to hurt themselves... Read more

I threw it all away for a girl... and other curious facts about men and women

John McCain may have thrown away the presidency because of a biological imperative in men to forget the future when the encounter the sight of a pretty woman, according to a piece in today's Washington Post. The author has based... Read more

The Lancet weighs in on McCain v Obama

John McCain's healthcare policies will increase the cost of healthcare - and deprive about 60 million people of the healthcare they currently through their employer, according to an analysis in the Lancet. But McCain's plan will also create competition in... Read more

The prize for the oddest book titles

From Waterproofing Your Child to Hot Topics In Urology, the Diagram Prize celebrates the oddest of odd book titles. Medical research has provided one of the richest seams over the years: A Pictorial Book Of Tongue Coatings, A Colour Atlas... Read more

Judge: having marijuana in urine doesn't mean impairment

An Irish judge has thrown out drugged driving charges against a young driver, ruling that the presence of marijuana in his urine did not mean he was necessarily "stoned out of his mind." Question is, if US states that have... Read more

IMT 'sleeps with the enemy'

Ingrid and Patrick in Dublin Airport... Read more

The story that keeps going and going...1,800 jobs to go in hospital sector

The Irish Times is now getting in on the act of reporting the story about the 1,800 jobs to be shed in the hospital sector in Ireland. The chronology of this story is interesting: it was first reported in the... Read more

1,800 lost jobs aren't news anymore, they're history

The Irish Medical News is reporting today that 1,800 jobs are to go in the Irish hospital sector — according to the 'latest' figures from the Health Service Executive. Of course,this isn't news to anyone else in the health sector... Read more

Top ten films to watch on a sick day

This is a pretty good list from Kaboose.com - exactly the kind of films you can watch when you don't have the strength to get off the couch. Seems to me that sick and hangover are interchangeable, though Viscera does... Read more

'This is a big deal' - and other quotes from Dr Phil

Tired of all the coddling and advice your patients/friends/children require? Why not keep this page open on your computer, and hit the links as appropriate?... Read more

What to do when you hear a bad joke (or tell a good one nobody laughs at)

Here's a doctor joke from Profession Jokes. It's not very good: A man went to see his doctor because he was suffering from a miserable cold. His doctor prescribed some pills, but they didn't help. On his next visit the... Read more

Something fishy in the South Atlantic Ocean

A small sum of money listed in the CSO's Irish Merchandise trade figures for 2006 & 2007 may be nothing at all, but to me it seems right out of the X-Files. According to the CSO's own figures, Ireland imported... Read more

They'll let anybody practise alternative medicine

Alternative medicine was dealt a credibility blow when the second-most important defendant to face trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) turned out to have practised in a private clinic for the last decade or so.... Read more

How did Oscar die?

On his deathbed, Oscar Wilde famously remarked, apropos the wallpaper in his Parisian hovel: "One of us has to go." Modern medicine takes the view that Oscar Wilde died of an ear infection and meningitis and not the classic disease... Read more

Why do dying people sometimes seek secluded, private spaces?

The blogger in Random Acts of Reality remarks about a badly assaulted man who had wedged himself into tight spot: "There are two reasons why a person wedges themselves in place like that, the first is that they think that... Read more

Tummy tucks unaffected by credit crunch

Seems the credit crunch hasn’t cut numbers seeking tummy tucks. Irish women have stopped spending money on holidays and their homes, but they're spending more on themselves, according to the Belfast Telegraph. The number of Irish women undergoing tummy tucks... Read more

Are teenage mothers making long-term financial decisions by becoming pregnant?

An impassioned editorial in the LA Times has asked people to eliminate "teen pregnancy" form their vocabularies, arguing that "teenage motherhood may represent a rational long-term economic choice for poorer women." Evidence for this was quashed because it "wasn't what... Read more

Cubans are very proud of their health service

Talk to any Cuban and the top three things they will mention as a source of national pride are their state-funded, universally free healthcare; the country's free education system; and their prowess at sports. When health isn't top of their... Read more

Forget illness prevention; try 'treatment prevention'

Financial cutbacks to the health service may hurt patients, but what if there were no patients? "From July 31st 2008 it will be illegal to be sick in any way. This covers a broad range of the population and will... Read more

Who needs illnesses when you have hospitals like these?

A chilling account of night in a paediatric emergency department, from Fiche Focal.... Read more

Are you a useful doctor?

Is being a good doctor the same as being a virtuous one? asks Deborah Kirklin in the BMJ blogs. Any medical blog that quotes Chekhov's "Ward No. 6" is worth passing along.... Read more

When homicide cases get bogged down

Supposing you worked in forensic medicine and a killing you thought was a recent homicide, in fact happened 2,000 years ago. How would you react? During an Irish investigation, medical examiners working the case revealed that the dense bog had... Read more

Health tourism fears debunked

A good article, from the Times, about the effect of the new EU Directive that codifies the rights of patients to travel abroad for treatment.... Read more

NHS hospitals go Big Brother

Patients in the UK won't get to completely eliminate hospitals, but now their votes will mean fines and pay rewards, following the publication of a report, Higher Quality for All, by the Health Minister, Lord Darzi. “For the first time,... Read more

Idiocy and beaver cod

According to my computer's built-in dictionary (I was seeking synonyms for idiocy to moderate an attack on the competency of some hospital managers), "a seventeenth-century antidote to idiocy was to rub the forehead with beaver testicles." I subsequently discovered... Read more

Sex and comedy: haven't we had enough medical dramatics?

Ever noticed they don't have patients waiting for days on trolleys in medical TV series? And those defibrillator electrode jolts, which work miraculously on TV, are a last throw of the dice and hardly ever work in real life... Verisimilitude... Read more

The Lisbon Treaty vote: a sad day for democracy

The Lisbon Treaty has been defeated, and from the looks of it, Europe is in turmoil. The opposition scored a shocking victory through scare tactics, lies, and exaggeration - but nothing was so helpful for the No campaign as the... Read more

Right-brained, left-brained, or just a standard optical illusion?

The Well weighs in on the spinning dancer debate.... Read more

New psychiatry specialty wanted in NI: gayness reversal

In the moral, political and cultural Twilight Zone that is the Six Counties, the chair of the Stormont health committee invited homosexuals to see a psychiatrist to turn them around, so to speak. Ms Iris Robinson told BBC Radio Ulster's... Read more

Sex is 10 times more effective than valium as a tranquiliser

It's Friday. The weather's nice. Don't work so hard: enjoy a little health & food trivia. Some highlights: "Americans, on average, eat 18 acres of pizza every single day." "In Bahrain, a male gynecologist can only examine a woman's private... Read more

The world compressed to 100 people

It's easy to comprehend the scale of inequity in the world when you compress the population from whatever billion to 100. This page gets quite maudlin, but it starts off well.... Read more

Bertie to Department of Health: play the ponies

If gambling on horses can make money appear out of nowhere, the Department of Health ought to throw its staff Christmas party in Leopardstown: it's going to need some cash. The news in this morning's Irish Times was bad and... Read more

Do not prescribe Mentos and Diet Coke and a video camera to your patients

By now, most of the world has learned via YouTube that when you mix Mentos and Diet Coke, you get an explosion. But a quick glance at some other clips shows that the real problem is when you give human... Read more

Next week in the Dáil: mud wrestling

Now that Bertie Ahern has exited stage left, people could be forgiven for expecting inadvertent comedy to disappear from otherwise long-winded and boring debates in the Dáil. But don’t worry—it looks like new Taoiseach Brian Cowen will be equally, or... Read more

Mary Harney: il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Mary Harney has been Minister for Health since 2004 and now, thanks to new Taoiseach Brian Cowen, she's about to do what no female politician has done before: enter another five years on the job. The only other two female... Read more

Hiccup... Hiccup... Hiccup... Hiccup... etcetera

Hiccups are often the cause of mirth, but you just have to feel really sorry for this guy.... Read more

Could blindness be eradicated in 10 years?

Doctors in the UK have implanted breakthrough "bionic eyes" in two patients at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Soon, patients with artificial eyes, who have been blind for decades, could be recognizing faces, according to the Times.... Read more

Think before you buy her perfume

More women are choosing to go fragrance-less, according to the New York Times, and buying perfume for your girlfriend could risk ruining the romance later this evening. So if you've only just now realised that today is Valentine's Day, you... Read more

Email scam for docs: I've lost my passport in my little bag!

There's a pretty harmless email scam that's targeting doctors in, at least, the UK and Ireland - harmless because you'd have to be ten kinds of fool to fall for it. But it's still pretty funny to read. And a... Read more

KEY TRENDS OF 2008

Those wily trendspotters (trainspotters?) are at it again. From the people who brought you http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=imEQX metrosexual man, globesity and domestic divas comes the new trends for 2008.... Read more

Try something new at Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s – who through their spokesperson (should that be smokesperson?) Jamie Oliver are always urging us to ‘try something new’ are now funding a study undertaken by MS Society in the UK www.mssociety.org.uk that examines the use of a chemical... Read more

Belfast's miserable Christmas thieves

Thieves who broke into Father Christmas's grotto in Belfast last weekend, practically snatched money away from terminally ill children. Some genius or geniuses decided it would be great craic to break into Santa's workshop, just outside Belfast City Hall, and... Read more

You can't spell success without UCC

Reading the medical press is an education in itself on many levels - there are some interesting columnists out there. One of them is UCC graduate Dr John Ryan who now lives in Boston. In his latest column for one... Read more

Bono, Bikes and Barry O'Brien

One of the issues brought up in the previous entry by Randall Chipkar http://www.motorcyclecancer.com — aside from the fact that motorbikes may give you cancer - is the question "Is it a paradox that thousands of motorcycle riders participate in... Read more

Easy Riders, Easy questions

You're either a biker or you're not, and if you are, nature has a way of reducing your numbers so as to reduce the threat to the general population. Because, let's face it, Ireland's roads are pretty dangerous, but doubly... Read more

In the name of science

Did you know that viagra has the ability to aid hamsters in overcoming jetlag? That it just might be possible to extract vanilla essence from cow dung? Or, in a terrible escalation of chemical warfare, US researchers are exploring... Read more

Great medical blogs

I was looking around at other medical blogs yesterday and found some good ones, mostly written by doctors trying to blow off steam while remaining anonymous. (A popular cloud of steam seems to be complaining how pharmaceutical companies are pressuring... Read more

An onion-based tonic

'Grandma still feels draft' Is the world getting you down? Are you fed up with the eejits, ineptitude, rudeness, exploitation, etc that can confront you on a daily basis in today's society. Well let me point you to a... Read more