Medical Health Blog

Continuing efforts to improve working conditions and management practices in the profession the British Veterinary Association (BVA) is offering new management seminars on - Getting the most out of your veterinary practice team – 22 April - Getting the most out of your job – 23 April Both courses include a mental wellbeing element and both offer advice on contracts of employment and employment law. The practice team seminar also looks at management and communication techniques to help prevent stress, distress, anger and conflict…

Wendy Harris, Deputy Registrar and Director of Regulation at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB), will be leaving in mid-March to take up a new position as Transitional Director of Policy at the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA). Jeremy Holmes, RPSGB Chief Executive and Registrar, said: “Since joining the Society in June 2008 Wendy has made an enormous contribution to pharmacy regulation…

Progress has been made in recent years in reducing the incidence of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C), largely because communities and families are taking action and calling for change. However an estimated 120 to 140 million women have been subject to this harmful and dangerous practice and 3 million girls continue to be at risk each year. The practice persists because it is sustained by social perceptions, including that girls and their families will face shame, social exclusion and diminished marriage prospects if they forego cutting. These perceptions can, and must, change…

As global attention focuses on efforts to provide life-saving support to the people of Haiti, UNICEF released its Humanitarian Action Report (HAR) 2010. This annual report spotlights the most severe crises impacting children and women around the world and includes an appeal for additional assistance. This year’s report highlights the situation of children and women in 28 countries and territories that have been identified as being in the most desperate need, and seeks $1.2 billion to help them…

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced a 3-5 year joint research collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA) and Harvard University (Cambridge, USA) that will use stem cell technologies to advance drug discovery in areas of high unmet medical need. The aim is to develop cellular models of disease based on human stem cell lines and to investigate the potential efficacy, safety and toxicology profile of new drug candidates from Roche’s compound library. Cell lines will be derived from the tissues of healthy volunteers and from patients with various diseases…

The number of Americans buying prescription drugs to treat digestive conditions climbed over 50 percent, rising from 18.1 million to 29 million people between 1997 and 2007, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Total annual spending for these drugs increased from $7 billion to nearly $19 billion from from 1997 to 2007 ( in 2007 dollars). Other findings include: - The proportion of children ages 17 and younger who had at least one prescription drug for a digestive condition purchased rose from 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent…

A patient presumed to be in a vegetative state for five years can communicate ‘yes’ and ‘no’ using just his thoughts, according to new research from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the University of Liège. In 2003 the patient, a 29 year old man, sustained a severe traumatic brain injury in a road traffic accident. He remained physically unresponsive and was presumed to be in a vegetative state…

On the twentieth anniversary of the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) research unit’s presence in Uganda, Director Heiner Grosskurth looks back on the changing landscape of research into HIV/AIDS at the commemorative scientific symposium in Entebbe today. With Uganda often heralded as a model in Africa for fighting the disease, Professor Grosskurth reflects on how Uganda dramatically halved the prevalence of HIV/AIDS over this timeframe and describes the contribution made by medical research…

One of the worlds leading lactation experts, Professor Peter Hartmann, has been awarded with the Rank Prize Fund for Nutrition, worth £50,000, in recognition of his groundbreaking collaborative work with Prof. Robyn Owens and their invaluable contribution to the current understanding of human lactation. The funds, which are awarded in acknowledgment of excellence in; animal and health nutrition, crop husbandry and optoelectronics, will be presented during an official ceremony in London on February 8th at The Royal College of Physicians…

In a study presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s (SMFM) annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™ in Chicago, researchers showed the use of haplotype tagging (hap-tag) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to study the relationship between genetic predispositions, an environmental factor – bacterial vaginosis, and preterm birth. Studies previously demonstrated that genetic variation within genes that regulate the maternal inflammatory response are associated with an increased risk of spontaneous preterm delivery (SPTD)…