Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Peter C. Doherty
All prediction is probabilistic. Maybe that statement is unfamiliar. It’s central to the thinking of every scientist, though this is not to the way media commentators like Jenny McCarthy approach the world. Scientists make certain predictions, or recommend courses of action on the basis of the best available evidence, but we realize that there is always an element of risk.
By Robert M. Feldman, MD
Glaucoma is a potentially blinding disease where degeneration of the optic nerve leads to progressive vision loss. In the United States, it is estimated that 2.2 million suffer from glaucoma.
Now more than ever, health is one of the most important political issues for countries all over the world. As policies are brought in to tackle health problems, such as obesity, malnutrition, and food access, scholars look at what role economics plays in health and nutrition.
By Catherine Proot and Michael Yorke
Who cares? When the chips are down, most people do, but they are likely to need support and encouragement. The challenge is to make the palliative care skills and support more widely available in the family home, where the majority of people prefer to be cared for and die. It could be said that caring for a dying person is not a single person’s job, even if it is the most important and honourable one that that person might ever do.
Obesity is often framed by public health officials as an epidemic, leading to a virtually unequivocal understanding of fat as “bad.” What this framing does not take into account, however, are the increasingly negative consequences of categorizing people – particularly women – as overweight.
By Robert Goldney, AO, MD
Not all suicide can be prevented. That is particularly so when help is not sought. On other occasions suicide can be interpreted as the inevitable outcome of a malignant mental disorder, and that can be of some comfort to grieving families and friends who may be feeling guilty at their sense of relief that uncertainty is over. Clinicians may also share those emotions. However, if adequate assessment of each individual is undertaken and appropriate management pursued, on balance there will be an overall reduction in the unacceptable rate of suicide worldwide.
By Rachel Bowlby
The news that Britain is set to become the first country to authorize IVF using genetic material from three people—the so-called ‘three-parent baby’—has given rise to (very predictable) divisions of opinion.
By Vesna Jevtovic-Todorovic and Hugh Hemmings
Rapidly mounting animal evidence clearly indicates that exposure to general anaesthesia during the early stages of brain development results in long lasting behavioural impairments . These behavioural impairments manifest as reduced performance in tests of learning and memory know as cognitive deficits, lack of motivation, and problems with social interactions. Some worrisome similarities are apparent when emerging human data are carefully compared with animal data.
By Heidi Moawad
Health care is expanding its reach in many directions. Globalization is increasingly allowing patients throughout the world to access all types of health care from anywhere in the world. Between the growth in medical tourism, medical missions service, international education, and the increasing intersection of western medicine into eastern culture and eastern medicine into western culture, individuals have vaster array of choices to preserve their health than ever before.
By Ian Miller
Between 1909 and 1914, imprisoned militant suffragettes undertook hunger strikes across Britain and Ireland. Public distaste for the practice of forcible feeding ultimately led to the passing of the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act, or ‘the Cat and Mouse Act’ as it was more commonly known. The 25th of April 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of this Act, passed so that prison medical officers could discharge hunger-striking suffragettes from prisons if they fell ill from hunger.
By Seth Stein LeJacq
These days we generally agree that the big medical problems should be left to the professionals. We don’t see ourselves as the appropriate people and our homes as the appropriate places to deal with major injuries, severe illnesses, chronic conditions, and many other significant medical events. This wasn’t the case in seventeenth-century Britain, where domestic healing was the norm and the home was the central place where healing occurred. People prepared to deal with the very worst illnesses and injuries at home.
By Dr. Anita Gupta
Too often patients feel like they’re in the passenger seat when entering the hospital. Even in the best of circumstances — such as planned admissions — patients often don’t feel in control of their own care. One of the most unnecessary issues facing patients when they enter the hospital is untreated (or undertreated) pain.
Do you know how an author meets the criteria for authorship? Or what should happen to the author’s name if they die before their manuscript is published? This quiz, taken from the AMA Manual of Style, helps you to navigate the ethical and legal considerations and dilemmas most commonly encountered in scholarly scientific publication.
By Moses Rodriguez, Orhun Kantarci and Istvan Pirko
So all the test results are back, and you’re seeing the patient (and perhaps his /her partner) to report that the patient is in the early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS) or is recovering from a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) indicative of MS. “What’s the next step?” they may ask. Maybe you’ll tell them to go home and continue training for that cross-country bike trip or planning the wedding or designing a website for their new start-up company.
By Dr. Holly Wethington
Federal law in the United States requires restaurants with at least 20 locations nationally to list calorie information next to menu items on menus or menu boards. This law includes the prominent placement of a statement concerning suggested daily caloric intake on the menu. While national menu labeling has not been implemented, some fast food and chain restaurants have begun to post this information voluntarily.
By Lorna Speid
With as little thought as combing our hair or brushing our teeth, we tweet, engage with family and friends on Facebook, write blogs, and give our opinions on social media sites. On the major streets of all major cities in the world, children, teenagers, professionals, the unemployed, and pensioners alike take calls and send texts without a second thought. Technology is so much a part of our day to day lives that we can barely remember how we could have managed without it.