Haiti, Anthrax poisoning, Neurophobia and Racism

In the news this week was the devastating earthquake which hit Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It seems now that between 50 and 100 thousand people have lost their lives and the photos show near 'apocalyptic' scenes. This made me think about the challenges to doctors and healthcare for people there. This week I've been in the A&E department or Ninewells. The centre is fully equipped to cope with all ranges of injury and the doctors have all of the resources they require at their disopsal. I think the biggest tragedy about Haiti is that a vast number of lives could probably have been saved with limited interventions eg. IV infusions, oxygen etc. There must be extremely limited resources and I wonder how the doctor's and aid workers in Haiti are coping at present. The loss of life in the whole incident is awful and the whole thing has been playing on my mind alot this week, thinking about the broader access to healthcare around the world. It just seems so unfair at times.

A few other things which took my attention this week from the BMJ.
Multiculturalism in the NHS - the experience of a not so foreign "foreign doctor". A Low.
A reminder by a doctor born in the UK but of Chinese origins that racism in the workplace is still common and that racial stereotyping does occur in clinical practice. He says that although he has lived in UK all his life, he frequently is asked questions such as 'How are you finding the climate over here then?'. It just reminded me about the multi-cultural nature of the UK at present and the benefits of having such an environment to live in.

Surgeons swear when operating: fact or myth? F Fausto Palazzo, Orlando J Warner
These guys did a study back in 1999 looking at the incidence of swearing in operating theatres and found that orthopaedic surgeons out of all specialities had on average the shortest time lapse between swearing. Thought it was a funny, light hearted article displaying a common truth!

House calls: The case of the entertaining case. R Thomas.

An investigation into the hypothesis that neurology cases are more frequently used as case reports than other specialties. Apparently there is a bias amongst medical students for case reports which involve neurology. The authors looked the US programme 'House' starring Hugh Laurie and found that 28% of cases included neurological diagnoses, with infectious diseases being the 2nd most common category with 16% of diagnoses. I can't believe that to carry out this study these guys must have watched every episode of House and listed the diagnoses! Nonetheless an entertaining article.

Another topical story this week in the news has been about the recent number of cases in Scotland of patients who have been getting Anthrax poisoning as a result of contamination of heroin supplies. Apparently the story has made it all the way to the New York Times although and I did see a couple of suspected cases during the week in A&E.