Category Archives: medical writing

Pharma targeting nurses for ‘education’

Big Pharma shifts focus onto nurses. It’s marketing money well spent. Continue reading

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Deprescribing: a fancy word for ceasing?

What’s old is new again. Hipster beards are so in, they’re out, and where we used to simply cease medications—we now deprescribe them. Continue reading

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Eat like an Italian

A new study confirms the life-saving power of a Mediterranean diet. So why have I been too lazy to prescribe it until now? Continue reading

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Diagnostic health apps: coming soon to your smart phone.

Could this week’s new phone app be the world’s smartest diagnostic tool? Or does it just want to be? Continue reading

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Paracetamol and pregnancy: what’s the fuss?

Today’s health news is all about whether taking paracetamol (Panadol, Tylenol) while pregnant may cause ADHD. What did yesterday’s study actually show? Continue reading

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Does complementary medicine equal anti-vax?

This week’s systematic review finds many alternative practitioners occupying the middle ground between vaccine and anti-vax camps. Continue reading

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Pharmacy business model: consumers at risk

Q. “Are patients confused when non-evidence based therapies are sold alongside prescription medicines?”
A. “Yes.” Continue reading

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Does high antibiotic use prevent serious complications?

A BMJ article yesterday provided strong evidence that doctors who prescribe antibiotics at high rates for respiratory tract infections are not, in fact, protecting their patients from serious bacterial complications such as meningitis. This finding negates the ‘patient safety’ claim repeatedly pulled out … Continue reading

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Weight-loss surgery: really the most radical treatment in a century?

I spend a lot of time highlighting the commercial forces that promote expensive medical interventions. So yesterday, when I read a lead author describe his new guidelines as “the most radical change in the treatment of type 2 diabetes for almost … Continue reading

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My last laugh

  This column marks the end of four years of my writing for the Medical Observer column Humerus. The GP magazine is undergoing a major revamp and there just ain’t no more room for the funny bits. That’s okay; publication … Continue reading

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