Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Robert J Moots
World Arthritis Day is celebrated each year on the 12th of October. It was first established in 1996 by Arthritis and Rheumatism International with the aim to raise awareness of issues affecting people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases within the medical community, as well as the general population.
By Gayle Sulik
The iconic pink breast cancer awareness ribbon – once a consciousness-raising symbol—now functions primarily as a logo for the breast cancer brand.
By Philippe Grandjean
This time of the year, parents worry about what the new school year will bring for their children, teachers complain about school budget constraints, and politicians express ambitions that at least 90% of all children complete basic schooling and 50% or more pursue college degrees.
To mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October, here is an extract from Cancer: A Very Short Introduction by Nick James.
By Daniel M. Davis
Sixty years ago today, the world’s top science journal Nature published an article just 3½ pages long, which won a Nobel Prize for its lead author Peter Medawar and more importantly put doctors on the right path for making transplantation surgery the life-saver that it is today.
By Perry N. Halkitis
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, treatment options were limited at best. Most who were living with HIV/AIDS, the majority of whom were gay men, attempted to find and use treatments that would save their lives and control the virus from causing further physical deterioration.
By Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein
In 2009, Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, in Long Island Care at Home vs. Evelyn Coke upheld the administrative rule of the US Department of Labor that classified home health care workers as elder companions, excluding them from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
By Martine Piccart
Personalized medicine is one of the objectives of the European Union’s “Horizon 2020” funding program and a high priority on the ESMO board’s strategic agenda: indeed, in oncology, many therapies share a narrow therapeutic index and high cost, implying that prescribing the wrong treatment to the wrong patient at the wrong time can have very negative consequences for both patients and public health systems.
By Philip Mackowiak
It has been said that the only persons who refer to themselves as “we” are royalty, college professors, and those with worms. In the 4 September 2013 issue of the Lancet, Piers Mitchell and colleagues present evidence that Richard III, one of England’s best known medieval kings and the deformed villain of Shakespeare’s Richard III, had two reasons for referring to himself in the first person plural.
By Jonathan Minton
Our demography has been scarred by the two World Wars. In our maps these appear as two thin clusters of ovals, like onions that have been flattened then cut open. Topographically, these oval clusters show mortality risk jutting shard-like out of the lowlands of early adulthood like the kite-shaped plates of a stegosaurus.
By Maoyong Fan and Yanhong Jin
The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States has risen dramatically across all racial, gender, and ethnic groups since 1980. Approximately three out of ten children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese.
By Jonathan Minton
If demography were a landscape, what would it look like? Every country has a different geographical shape and texture, visible at high relief, like an extra-terrestrial fingerprint. But what about the shape and texture revealed by the demographic records of the people who live and die on these tracts of land?
By Elizabeth Wallin
With the new medical school term about to start, lots of fresh-faced medical students are about to hit the wards for the first time. Finding the right balance between lectures, bookwork and bedside experience is difficult, and different for everyone. Some learn best in the library, others in theatre, and others by sticking like glue to a qualified doctor.
By Richard Bränström
Although there has been much progress in many European countries regarding social acceptance of LGBT individuals in recent decades; much discrimination, social injustice, and intolerance still exists with adverse consequences for both physical and mental health in these populations.
By Heidi Moawad
As a medical student, you are the future of health care. Despite the persistent negativity about the state of health care and the seemingly never-ending health care crisis, you have astutely perceived the benefits of becoming a physician.
By Huw Llewelyn
In medicine, we use two different thought processes: (1) non-transparent thought, e.g. slick, subjective decisions and (2) transparent reasoning, e.g. verbal explanations to patients, discussions during meetings, ward rounds, and letter-writing.