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Medicine remains a white male dominated profession

Despite a record number of female medical students, medicine remains a white male dominated profession – but its days as such are numbered, says a paper in this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ).

10 Sep 2005

Booking ahead to see the doctor not that easy

According to a health service watchdog in the UK, getting in to see the doctor is not as easy as it should be.

10 Sep 2005

Government ignoring underlying capacity problems says

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee (GPC), commenting on the Government's access announcement, said the Government was failing to tackle the underlying capacity problem behind the current difficulties in booking GP appointments.

7 Sep 2005

Enrollment at U.S. medical schools has changed very little over the last 10 years

The authors found that the number of medical students in 1994-1995 and in 2004-2005 remained constant, at about 67,000. The number of full-time faculty members increased from 90,016 in 1994-1995 to 119,025 in 2004-2005 (a 32 percent increase).

7 Sep 2005

Health provider fined over assault of psychiatric nurse

An Australian Health provider has been given a hefty fine after a psychiatric nurse, on duty in a hospital in New South Wales, was assaulted by a patient.

6 Sep 2005

Nurse-led multidisciplinary programme can help coronary patients and their families to reduce their risk of major cardiovascular disease

Early results from the EuroAction hospital project, announced today at the European Society of Cardiology, demonstrate how a nurse-led multidisciplinary programme, organised in busy general hospitals, can help coronary patients and their families to reduce their risk of major cardiovascular disease (CVD).

5 Sep 2005

BMA warns of medical academic crisis in Scotland

The BMA this week called on the Scottish Executive to tackle the medical academic recruitment crisis that threatens to jeopardise plans to increase the number of medical students being educated in Scotland.

4 Sep 2005

High care standards mean GPs are worth their weight in gold

According to the UK Department of Health, the first results from a scheme, called the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), show that by performing beyond expectation, family doctors earned their surgeries thousands of pounds in bonuses.

1 Sep 2005

Hospitals out of action because of Katrina

Hurricane Katrina has left a trail of devastation in the Mississippi Gulf Coast area, including such serious damage to hospitals that three in the area have had to be evacuated.

31 Aug 2005

No show patients cost the health service millions each year

According to a new survey, missed appointments costs the National Health Service in the UK £21m.

25 Aug 2005

Teen cancer patients need specially designed wards

According to an National Health Advisory Body in the UK, most children and teenagers with cancer are treated on adult or paediatric wards.

25 Aug 2005

Private health screening bonanza as thousands of Brits take unnecessary tests

According to doctors in the UK, thousands of healthy people, encouraged by celebrity endorsements, are having expensive private medical tests done which they do not need and may even be doing them harm.

24 Aug 2005

Fear of superbugs bans nurses from wearing their uniform when not on duty

District nurses in the UK, working in the community, have been banned from wearing their uniforms when they are not on duty, amid growing concerns about superbugs.

23 Aug 2005

Building stronger health systems key to reaching the health millenium development

Building up and strengthening health systems is vital if more progress is to be made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report. Unless urgent investments are made in health systems, current rates of progress will not be sufficient to meet most of the goals.

22 Aug 2005

New guidelines to battle heart failure

Early diagnosis and new treatments can help battle heart failure -- a growing national problem that causes 1 million hospital admissions each year, according to new guidelines released by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA).

22 Aug 2005

Leading British doctor says free NHS is unsustainable

One of Britain's most senior doctors says that the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is unsustainable and needs to be reformed.

14 Aug 2005

Six Pennsylvania hospitals receive grants to tackle hospital-acquired infections

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) have announced that six Pennsylvania hospitals will receive grants for demonstration projects to quantify the costs, and to reduce the number, of hospital-acquired infections.

11 Aug 2005

Medicare access in the Sunshine state in jeopardy for seniors

The American Medical Association, (AMA), says that access to care for Florida's nearly 3 million Medicare patients will be in jeopardy if Congress does not act to halt a cut in payments to physicians.

9 Aug 2005

Hospital characteristics appear to be associated with use of do-not-resuscitate orders

Hospital characteristics, including size, non-profit status and affiliation with a university, appear to be associated with use of do-not-resuscitate orders (DNR) in California, independent of the patient's characteristics, according to a study in the August 8/22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

9 Aug 2005

More people die as a result of medical errors than from other common causes of death

As part of international efforts to improve patient safety, a new website has been created (www.saferhealthcare.org.uk), run by a partnership of the National Patient Safety Agency, the BMJ Publishing Group, and the US-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

4 Aug 2005