• Book Review – Tough Choices: Stories from the Front Line of Medical Ethics (Book Guild, 2018) by Daniel Sokol

  Daniel Sokol takes us on a fascinating journey through the world of medical ethics, drawing on his extensive experience as a medical ethicist and barrister in London. The book consists of short chapters on contemporary ethical complexities, recent media headlines (such as the Alfie Evans case), issues core to medical practice such as the nature of the doctor-patient relationship and […]

  

• Dealing with a damaging report at a Fitness to Practise Panel

    Dr Daniel Sokol is a barrister specialising in student appeals and former lecturer in medical ethics.  He frequently represents medical students at university hearings Few events are more terrifying for medical students than a Fitness to Practise Panel.  The Panel decides whether a student is fit to practise for the purposes of continuing their medical studies.  It can effectively […]

  

• Zero Tolerance or Zero Humanity: Trump’s Immigration Policy Dividing Families and Opinion

  Ever since Trump rose to political fame, it has been no secret that his anti-immigration stance forms the core of his agenda. As US president he has repeatedly linked undocumented migrants to crime in the country, paving the way for his “Zero Tolerance” policy. The policy has meant that at the US-Mexican border, immigrants illegally crossing into the States have […]

  

• ‘Would I Lie to You?’ Brexit Edition – Series 3, Episode 27

  Elliot Clissold Comment Editor   It initially flew onto the scene with a Big Red Bus and ‘£350m a week for the NHS’ splattered across the sides. Since then, the long-running show has become a national favourite. Although not packed with quite as much intentional comedy as the original, its regular panellists, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, are the stars […]

  

• Between a GMC-shaped rock and lots of hard places: medical errors in the era of Dr Bawa-Garba

  Elliot Clissold Comment Editor   Malevolent, lazy, or incompetent?   It must be one of those things.   Did Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, a specialist registrar in paediatrics with 6 years of post-graduate training and a previously immaculate record, regarded as an excellent doctor by her colleagues, wake up on the 18th of February, 2011 and decide that she wanted to […]

  

• “Anything you reflect on can, and will, be used against you” : the medical Miranda rights

  In the light of recent events regarding the Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba case, The Medical Student in collaboration with medical students at the UEA, decided to publish an article written by Briony Keir in The Murmur – a medical magazine written and edited by medical students at Norwich Medical School, UEA. The Murmur can be accessed on http://www.ueamedsoc.co.uk/medsoc-murmur.html    If you’re anything […]

  

• Dr Bawa-Garba is all of us

  On the 25th of last month, a seven-year legal battle came to an end: Dr Hadiza Bawa- Garba was struck off the medical register. An ST6 paediatrics registrar, Dr Bawa- Garba was charged with gross negligence and manslaughter in connection with the death of Jack Adcock, a six year old boy with Down’s Syndrome. In what is now described as […]

  

• Rohingya Exodus: The World’s Most Persecuted Minority.

  Hana Mahmood | Comment Editor   Who are the Rohingya? Neglected by neighbouring countries and rejected by their homeland, some 400,000 Rohingya civilians have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State for shelter in overcrowded Bangladeshi refugee camps. The Rohingya, who are not considered to be citizens by the government in Myanmar, are facing a heightened identity crisis following a military crackdown on the […]

  

• UPDATE! Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: a review and an article on Global Health

  “And I have sat silently, gazing up at this night sky, counting endless and uncountable sparkling stars as they greet me one by one, palpating the infinity of the universe beyond and accepting my place in it.” This is not something that one would typically expect to find in a book detailing the journey of a doctor as they progress […]

  

• Care about people’s health? Then start caring about climate change

  Elliot Clissold Comment Editor In the era known as the ‘Anthropocene’, people’s health is now decided beyond the hospital walls. That means our responsibility must extend beyond them, too   Being a doctor is hard. There aren’t many careers where as much stress and responsibility is thrust upon those who venture into it than medicine. Neither though, upon reflection, are there […]

  

Other News

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Get Your Head In the Game

[box] Sean Morgan takes a look at traumatic brain injuries in sport [/box] When you think of injury in sport, the musculoskeletal system first comes to mind. A fractured clavicle, torn hamstring or ACL injury are injuries which you may be familiar with seeing on the sporting stage, whether you follow football, rugby, cycling or just about any sport. You […]

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by Sport Editor / on March 6, 2015 at 3:32 am /

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The impact of early exposure to air pollution!

There have been many reports recently about the air pollution in our cities (for example this article here) and its damaging effects on human health. London is known to be particularly dreadful, with many headlines in recent times talking about how poor the air quality really is (and how it has broken legal limits). Air pollution is a relevant and […]

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by Education Editor / on August 31, 2017 at 7:21 pm /

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Medicine and the Internet Era: The Landscape and the Challenges

by Yathu Maheswaran | Features Editor In most areas of our lives the internet is a welcome presence, and life without it – unimaginable! The realms of business, science and medicine have each enjoyed a revolution of greater information accessibility and new platforms for interaction and education, all owing thanks to the internet. But the expansion in knowledge and capabilities […]

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by Features Editor / on August 30, 2017 at 6:31 pm /

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Dissecting Anatomy: Past, Present, Future

by Yathu Maheswaran, Features Editor   In the early years of medical education, an inimitable experience will be studying anatomy. For many students, human anatomy can be as fascinating as it is arduous to learn. At the same time, it can be glorious in providing a consistent linguistic basis of medicine, but inglorious when we consider past stigma towards dissection […]

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by Features Editor / on August 17, 2017 at 1:48 pm /

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Grenfell Tower inquiry is a ‘complete betrayal’ of victims

The Grenfell Tower disaster, which claimed at least 80 lives in June, is a devastating illustration of the UK’s failing social housing system. Grenfell Tower, the remains of which are in one of richest boroughs in the country (Kensington and Chelsea), was a part of one of the city’s many underprivileged housing estates. We saw the poor living alongside the […]

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by Comment Editor / on August 17, 2017 at 9:21 am /

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Don’t Let it All Consume You: The Secrets to Success

  Marie Curie was an avid long-distance cyclist, Albert Einstein taught himself to play the violin and Sir Alexander Fleming loved to paint (using bacteria). Despite dedicating their lives to their disciplines, they also enjoyed life beyond the laboratory. As with the many scientists who have flourished before and since, their pursuits beyond work have been integral to their enduring […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on August 10, 2017 at 7:57 am /

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Handling hearts: improving heart preservation in transplants

The problems associated with preserving hearts during transplants are well known. Alongside the anticipated problems of graft rejection, there is the logistical issue of transporting the living heart from the donor to the recipient. Transporting the heart to the donor means cutting off its oxygen supply and mechanism of waste removal (i.e. the blood vessel system that supplies nutrient rich […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on August 10, 2017 at 7:22 am /

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Words are not enough. It’s time young people’s mental health is taken seriously

Elliot Clissold Comment Editor It shouldn’t take a high court judge to find a hospital bed for a suicidal girl. We need more than false promises and empty platitudes if we are to help our society’s most vulnerable. Whilst shadowing an on-call psychiatry trainee recently, I managed to sneak in a hurried conversation whilst running between wards. It started with […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on August 10, 2017 at 7:13 am /

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The right to re-write your past

Hana Mahmood Comment Editor     In a world where one’s online presence is viewed as a necessity, the UK Government is making a bold statement to ensure our safety and security online. This summer will see new legislation that will make it incumbent upon global corporations such as Google and Facebook to delete personal data when requested by its […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on August 10, 2017 at 6:59 am /

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Advice to FY1: Dr Clare Gerada

Dr Clare Gerada MBE FRCP FRCGP MRCPsych Medical Director of the Practitioner Health Programmer and Former Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners writes about the importance of looking after yourself as a newly qualified doctor. I qualified as a doctor in 1982, so am now in my 35th year working in the NHS, 25 of them as a […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on June 20, 2017 at 3:35 pm /

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Netter’s Introduction to Clinical Procedures

Katie Hodgkinson reviews Netter’s Introduction to Clinical Procedures by M. Loukas, R.S. Tubbs and J. Feldman Extensive and clear, this is yet another addition to Netter’s expanding repertoire of books based on the Netter illustrations. With over 30 clinical procedures neatly detailed, this book is a brilliant reference for those wanting to brush up on the exact way to perform […]

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by Editor-in-Chief / on May 22, 2017 at 4:14 pm /