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Category Archives: Medicine
Interesting snippets on getting adequate medical care
Last year I wrote a blog “Women’s bodies shamed in medicine”, (1) on how women are treated both as doctors and as patients, and how their position as doctors has improved out of all recognition in the last fifty years. There … Continue reading
Posted in Health Delivery, Health Policy, Medicine, Private health care, Women's Health
Tagged dental-care, health, healthcare, Medicine, NHS, Optometrists, pharmacists
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Women’s bodies shamed in medicine.
It is said that historically women have had a raw deal in Western systems of medicine. Women’s bodies have been routinely sexualized or their characteristics ignored or shamed. In a recent book1 a leading cancer doctor in the US, Dr … Continue reading
Posted in Health Delivery, Health Policy, Medicine, sexual relationships, Women's Health
Tagged discrimination, health service, misogyny, pseudo-angina, UK
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Looking Back on Covid-19
As I write this, some scientists are urging us to start to wear masks again, because there is a new variant and cases of covid are rising. Covid hasn’t gone away and we know that things may take a turn … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, Health Delivery, Health Policy, healthy food, Medicine, pandemic, science
Tagged Covid-19, health service, UK
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Apps for Women’s Health
The news that safe abortion is likely to be illegal in the USA, in vast swathes of the Midwest and south, is chilling. The right to control what happens in one’s own body is a basic human right. In … Continue reading
Posted in Health Management, Medicine, Populaion growth, Women's Health
Tagged Aid Access, contraception, contraceptive implants, IPPF, Menstrual cycle, Roe v Wade, WHO
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Hot flushes make the news again.
Reading articles in the press recently about the shortage of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) gave me a sense of déjà vu. Yes, I’ve seen this all before. Apparently some oestrogen patches have been in short supply since some manufacturers … Continue reading
Covid-19 – lockdowns go on and on. What should we do?
The decision to impose a second lockdown in England is polarising people to a much greater extent than it did in March, as it seems obvious that this virus is not going away and we are going to have to … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, Health Delivery, Health Management, Health Policy, hospital beds, old age
Tagged Covid-19, economy, Lockdown, mortality
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Coronavirus – Covid-sars-19 – the long view.
First the good news. The pandemic will end sometime, because they always do. There are three ways in which it could end. Firstly, with a vaccine or a really effective treatment for the severe cases. This is the best case … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, Food, Health Delivery, healthy food, Medicine, pandemic
Tagged Africa, BAME, diabetes, farming, hypertension, obesity, vaccine, virus
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So who really gets really sick with Coronavirus?
It is still very early days of this new life for all of us. There are such a lot of changes – home working, loads of leisure time to fill, catching up with friends we have neglected due to busy … Continue reading
Posted in Health Delivery, Health Policy, hospital beds, Medicine, science
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The real meaning of Coronavirus
Well, we are in a mess. We have an ordinary sort of virus (whose closest relative is the common cold), which mostly causes a severe flu, from which most people recover without any complications. Admittedly it has a death rate … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, Health Delivery, Health Management, hospital beds, Medicine, old age
Tagged Coronavirus, Covid-19, intensive care, nursing homes, pandemic, the elderly, ventilators, virus
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Is the patient really ill?
A question that often occurred to me when I was a GP was – Is this patient really ill? Some people obviously weren’t because they came about something else – for general advice for instance. But of the ones who … Continue reading
Elen Samuel, doctor and writer 