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Mashup Score: 0“Placeholder jobs” are isolating doctors at the start of their careers - 45 minute(s) ago
Allocating placeholder roles to incoming foundation doctors undermines their value to the NHS, writes Éabha Lynn Almost one thousand doctors about to start their careers in the UK have found themselves allocated to so-called “placeholder” roles.1 This means they know which area of the country they will be working in, but nothing more, and they could be given details of their foundation job with just three weeks’ notice.2 What does this tell our final year medical students about how they are valued by their future employer? What does it really mean to call a doctor a “placeholder?” It tells them that their years of hard work, throughout a pandemic and pay disputes, was not enough. It undermines the effort it takes to be accepted into medical school …
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
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Mashup Score: 0Ovarian cancer: identifying and managing familial and genetic risk—summary of new NICE guidance - 4 hour(s) ago
### What you need to know In the UK, around 7500 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer annually. Approximately 340 000 to 440 000 UK women carry a pathogenic variant in a high risk gene that increases their risk of developing the disease.1 However, only around 3% of people with a high risk gene know that they carry it.2 Most ovarian cancers associated with high risk genes are diagnosed at advanced stage, leading to poor clinical outcomes. Genetic testing can identify at-risk carriers, who can opt for preventive measures such as risk reducing surgery, which significantly lowers the risk of developing ovarian cancer.3 This article summarises new guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on identifying and managing familial and genetic risk of ovarian cancer.4 It covers select recommendations of relevance to those working in primary care and providers who refer to specialist services. Recommendations from this guideline are for anyone who has an increased
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Mashup Score: 11Guidance on terminology, application, and reporting of citation searching: the TARCiS statement - 14 hour(s) ago
Evidence syntheses adhering to systematic literature searching techniques are a cornerstone of evidence based healthcare. Beyond term based searching in electronic databases, citation searching is a prevalent search technique to identify relevant sources of evidence. However, for decades, citation searching methodology and terminology has not been standardised. An evidence guided, four round Delphi consensus study was conducted with 27 international methodological experts in order to develop the Terminology, Application, and Reporting of Citation Searching (TARCiS) statement. TARCiS comprises 10 specific recommendations, each with a rationale and explanation on when and how to conduct and report citation searching in the context of systematic literature searches. The statement also presents four research priorities, and it is hoped that systematic review teams are encouraged to incorporate TARCiS into standardised workflows. Synthesising scientific evidence by looking at the citation r
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Mashup Score: 32Role models help to progress gender parity, but we mustn’t forget the personal cost - 16 hour(s) ago
Let’s spare a thought for the women paving the way in male dominated specialties, writes Clara Munro A recent paper from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has gathered data confirming what many women in male dominated specialties in UK medicine have long since known: early exposure to relatable female role models affects your likelihood of choosing that specialty.1 Role models are essential to creating a diverse workforce and harnessing all the benefits that come with it—helping to close the gender pay gap, reflect the diverse needs of patients, and improve workplace culture.1 But we need to exercise caution when interpreting these findings. The presence of women in senior positions is no panacea for gender inequality in the workplace, nor can we expect individual women to singlehandedly solve the many structural barriers that prevent women from choosing certain specialties or progressing in their career. Attention should be paid to supporting those “role models” who, by virtue of their
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Mashup Score: 15Gaza: Israel begins Rafah attack despite WHO warning of “bloodbath” - 17 hour(s) ago
The Israeli military has launched a ground incursion into Rafah, southern Gaza, despite warnings from aid organisations that this would have “catastrophic consequences” for the 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in the area.1 Bob Kitchen, the International Rescue Committee’s vice president on emergencies, said on 8 May that dozens of civilians had already been killed in overnight attacks, while “hundreds of thousands more remain at grave risk from the threat of further conflict and a lack of access to life saving assistance.”2 Kitchen said it was “unconscionable to target such a densely populated area” and urged Israel to “halt further violence” and for “all parties to agree to an immediate and permanent ceasefire.” He has also called on the international community to “wield all diplomatic influence at its disposal to bring the parties to an agreement and halt the humanitarian tragedy underway in Rafah.” Last week the World Health Organization warned that a …
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Mashup Score: 12Polio vaccines: hope, hype, and history repeating? - 18 hour(s) ago
Announcement of new polio vaccines has once again raised hopes of eradicating polio. But the ongoing difficulties of their predecessors provide a cautionary tale, writes Robert Fortner In June 2023, a research article in Nature heralded new, “more stable” versions of the vaccines against two of the three types of poliovirus (types 1 and 3).1 “Super-engineered polio vaccines created to help end polio,” read a BBC headline.2 “Polio endgame finish is in sight,”3 added a Nature news article.3 The backdrop, however, is a little muddier. A similar fanfare had greeted the first of this new generation of oral polio vaccines in 2021. Novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) targets type 2 polio and went straight into widespread use. But it remains far from clear how well nOPV2 works. Before it was approved for emergency use, scientists warned that nOPV2 would not solve the problem set for it: to stamp out vaccine-derived polio. So far, it has not done so. Instead there are unanswered questions a
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Mashup Score: 98
Five infants died after developing whooping cough in England in the first three months of 2024, the UK Health Security Agency has reported.1 Altogether there were 1319 confirmed cases of whooping cough in the UK in March, up from 918 in February and 556 in January, bringing the total number of cases up to the end …
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Mashup Score: 4
Objective To compare the effectiveness of three commonly prescribed oral antidiabetic drugs added to metformin for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus requiring second line treatment in routine clinical practice. Design Cohort study emulating a comparative effectiveness trial (target trial). Setting Linked primary care, hospital, and death data in England, 2015-21. Participants 75 739 adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus who initiated second line oral antidiabetic treatment with a sulfonylurea, DPP-4 inhibitor, or SGLT-2 inhibitor added to metformin. Main outcome measures Primary outcome was absolute change in glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) between baseline and one year follow-up. Secondary outcomes were change in body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at one year and two years, change in HbA1c at two years, and time to ≥40% decline in eGFR, major adverse kidney event, hospital admission for heart failure, major adverse cardio
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Mashup Score: 17China’s declining fertility rate - 21 hour(s) ago
A long term trend with serious implications for population health and healthcare China had the largest population in the world for many decades. Its total fertility rate (the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime) was as high as 6.0 before 1970, then decreased to 1.5-1.7 by the late 1990s. The rate remained stable until the early 2010s and then fell again.1 In an attempt to increase birth rates, China replaced its one child policy—introduced in 1979— with a universal two child policy from 2015. However, the total fertility rate continued to fall, reaching 1.3 by 2020.2 Additional pronatalist measures followed in 2021 but did not reverse the trend. In 2023, just 9.02 million babies were born in China, half the number born in 2016. As societies become more prosperous and women achieve greater equality in education and employment, a falling birth rate seems unavoidable. In addition to rapid socioeconomic development and urbanisation, China’s family plannin
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Mashup Score: 15Ultra-processed foods linked to higher mortality - 23 hour(s) ago
Debate about the “ultra-processed” concept must not delay food policies that improve health As research into ultra-processed food gains momentum,1 so too does the debate.234 Foods that fall into the ultra-processed category according to the Nova classification are heterogeneous and include carbonated soft drinks, confectionary, extruded snack foods, distilled alcohol (spirits), and mass produced packaged wholegrain bread.5 Ultra-processed foods are typically high in energy, added sugar, saturated fat, and salt, and a major criticism of previous studies is that they have not disentangled the effects of processing, per se, from the nutrient profile of food products. The linked paper by Fang and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-078476) addresses this concern and others, in their evaluation of the relation between ultra-processed food consumption and mortality in two large US cohort studies.6 Fang and colleagues found a modest increase in the risk of total mortality with higher ultra-proce
Source: www.bmj.comCategories: General Medicine News, General HCPsTweet
Almost one thousand doctors about to start their careers in the UK have found themselves allocated to so-called “placeholder” roles. What does this tell final year medical students about how they are valued by their future employer? @eabhaaa @BMJStudent https://t.co/p5gMASF9sB