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Recent Posts
- Every disease has its queuer
- Australia’s best doctor comes in from the bush
- Tiwi GP – I can run, but can’t hide
- Coleman’s guide to poisoning and the dark arts
- Bad Habits
- Avoiding doctors like the plague
- Podcast 14: Alcohol-related harm in general practice
- Managing diabetes is not all about expensive medication
- My perfect medical statistics day
- GP Sceptics podcast 13: Nurses’ conflicts-of-interest
- A textbook case walked into the room
- Vitamins: mostly harmless, mostly profitable
- Post-truth therapy: alternative medicine with alternative facts
- Drug seeker basted me like a turkey
- 48-second GP consultations
- ‘Junior’ doctors: what’s in a label?
- GP Sceptics podcast 12: Doctors’ resilience
- GP Sceptics podcast 11: Medically Unexplained Symptoms
- How to measure med student empathy
- The Fed endures, and so must we
- Tamiflu: an expensive lesson in panic stockpiling
- GP Sceptics podcast 10: GPs at the Deep End
- Pain clinics: how did such a fresh idea turn sour?
- Not just a GP – I’m your specialist in uncertainty
- GP Sceptics podcast 9: The Environment
- Let’s celebrate the bolt-cutter surgeon
- Greater transparency on specialist fees: a no-brainer
- Four Corners Big Vitamins exposé: cuts both ways
- Five reasons why I’d still encourage my child to do medicine
- GP Sceptics podcast 8: Marketing
- Google Health Cards: the first test drive
- GP sceptics podcast 7: EBM Hijacked!
- Does the weather affect our joints?
- GP Sceptics podcast 6: Obesity – Christmas edition
- Anne Deveson, who destigmatised schizophrenia
- Why ‘medicine for the rich’ is sometimes inevitable
- GP Sceptics podcast 5: Lyme disease…don’t get sold a lemon
- GP Sceptics podcast 4: Addiction
- Homeopathy: US mandates ‘No evidence’ labels
- With Obamacare gone, how will Trumpcare affect US health?
Tag Archives: transparency
Tamiflu: an expensive lesson in panic stockpiling
The removal of Tamiflu from the WHO “core medicines” list is an uncomfortable reminder of the $4 billion we spent stockpiling it during the 2009 swine flu. What on earth were we thinking? Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged EBM, evidence, healthcare, Medical Observer, pharmaceutical, population health, Tamiflu, transparency
1 Comment
Greater transparency on specialist fees: a no-brainer
Health consumers are too much in the dark when it comes to guessing fees for seeing medical specialists. Let’s shine a light. Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged consumer, cost, fees, health, Medical Observer, specialists, transparency
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Four Corners Big Vitamins exposé: cuts both ways
One ABC report examines ‘Big Vitamins’ marketing techniques, as another exposes Big Pharma. Same coin. Both sides need exposing. Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged #FOAMed, advertising, marketing, Medical Observer, pharmaceutical, pharmacy, transparency, vitamins
7 Comments
Pharma targeting nurses for ‘education’
Big Pharma shifts focus onto nurses. It’s marketing money well spent. Continue reading
Posted in medical writing, Naked Doctor
Tagged Medical Observer, nurses, pharmaceutical, transparency
2 Comments
Today Tonight: product promotion dressed as health news
Last Friday on the Seven Network’s Today Tonight (TT), an episode on arthritis featured respected GP Dr Robert Menz, who gave a very solid interview – warning about the over-use of opioid medications, and promoting exercise and weight loss. Dr … Continue reading
Posted in Naked Doctor
Tagged advertising, evidence, naked doctor, overtreatment, pharmaceutical, RACGP, TGA, Today Tonight, transparency
13 Comments
Health consumers
To consume (v) I have always thought negatively of the word consume. I blame the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), whose first two definitions are; destroy or expend and; spend wastefully. The OED knows both interpretations all too well – no … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged consumer, health, humour, Medical Observer, RACGP, transparency
3 Comments
Pharma payments to doctors should be transparent
Back in the good old days, your good doctor could pop any commission from anybody into his left pantaloons pocket, and nobody would question it. These days, the public quite reasonably expects higher standards of accountability. Some would argue that doctors should … Continue reading