Get into Medicine UK
Archive for April 2012
Do you deserve free healthcare?
From The Guardian: Some 54% of doctors who took part said [in a survey] the NHS should have the right to withhold non-emergency treatment from patients who do not lose weight or stop smoking. However, senior doctors and patient groups have voiced alarm at what they call “blackmailing” of the sick, and denial of their … Continue reading
IMPORTANT CHANGE: Oxford Graduate Medicine – BMAT to be used
A warning to all graduate applicants for the accelerated 4-year Medicine course at Oxford: the 2012 selection procedure for 2013 entry has changed from previous years. Instead of UKCAT, students will have to sit the BMAT exam. This brings the graduate selection test into alignment with the undergraduate one. More information can be found here. … Continue reading
Asian Mosquitoes in Europe
From AFP, via Yahoo News: The climate in northwestern Europe and the Balkans is becoming suitable for the Asian tiger mosquito, a disease-spreading invasive species, scientists said on Wednesday. The warning comes from scientists at the University of Liverpool, northwestern England, who say the two regions have been having progressively milder winters and warmer summers. … Continue reading
Mind-Controlled Robots
From Associated Press, via Yahoo News: Tuesday’s demonstration involved a partially tetraplegic patient at a hospital in the southern Swiss town of Sion who imagined lifting his fingers to direct a robot at the university 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. Similar experiments have taken place in the United States and Germany but they either involved … Continue reading
Augmenting Reality for Older Drivers
From the BBC: The researchers have converted an electric car into a mobile laboratory. The “DriveLAB” has navigation tools, night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations. It can monitor concentration, stress levels and driving habits via glasses that can track eye movement, and monitors to assess where the key stress points are for older drivers. … Continue reading
Transplanting Vision
From the BBC: Scientists at University College London Institute of Ophthalmology injected cells from young healthy mice directly into the retinas of adult mice that had night-blindness. The findings are published in Nature. The cells transplanted were immature rod-photoreceptor cells, which are especially important for seeing in the dark. After four to six weeks up … Continue reading
Plain Paper Packets
From the BBC: The government is considering plans to strip all branding from cigarette packs sold in England in a bid to make smoking appear less attractive…. Research published in Australia has suggested that cigarette packets have increasingly become an important marketing tool as restrictions on advertising and sponsorship have been brought in. Mr Lansley … Continue reading
Hunter Killers target AIDS
From the Daily Mail: The scientists took CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes — the ‘killer’ T cells that help fight infection — from an HIV-infected individual and identified the molecule which guides the T cell in recognizing and killing HIV-infected cells. However, these T cells, while able to destroy HIV-infected cells, do not exist in great … Continue reading
Gene therapy for Parkinson’s Disease
From Yahoo Finance: Parkinson’s disease occurs when the brain gradually stops producing the nerve-controlling chemical dopamine. Over time symptoms such as tremors, slow movement and stiffness get worse. ProSavin, the new treatment, uses a “stripped-down” virus to transport dopamine-making genes into the brain. It is injected into a region called the striatum that helps control … Continue reading
Pregnant Men?
From The Telegraph: [doctors who have examined NHS hospital data]… discovered that 17,000 men were recorded as having been admitted to hospital for obstetric services -a specialism for pregnant women and their babies – and 8,000 to see a gynaecologist; while another 20,000 apparently needed to see a midwife. They also identified a steady increase … Continue reading
