What Does The Perfect Online Exam Revision Site Look Like?

Complimentary medicine (CAM) is controversial, especially when it is offered by the NHS! You only have to read the recent health section of the Telegraph to see Max Pemberton and James LeFanu exchanging strong opinions. Most of the ‘therapies’ available on the market have little to no evidence base to support their use and yet, I believe that it has an important role to play in modern medicine. I believe that CAM is useful not because of any voodoo magic water or because the soul of a tiger lives on in the dust of one of its claws but because modern medicine hasn’t tested EVERYTHING yet and because EVERY DOCTOR should be allowed to use a sugar pill or magic water to ease the anguish of the worried well every now and again. The placebo effect is powerful and could be used to help a lot of patients as well as save the NHS a lot of money. I visited my grandfather for a cup of coffee today. As old people tend to do we discussed his life, his life lessons and his health . My grandfather is 80-something years old and worked as a collier underground for about 25 years before rising up through the ranks of management. In his entire life he has been to hospital twice: Once to have his tonsils removed and once to have a TKR – total knee replacement. My granddad maintains that the secret of his good health is good food, plenty of exercise, keeping his mind active and 1 dried Ivy berry every month! He takes the dried ivy berries because a gypsie once told his father that doing so would prevent infection of open wounds; common injuries in those working under ground. It is my granddad’s firm belief that the ivy berries have kept him healthy over the past 60 years, despite significant drinking and a 40 year pack history! My grandfather is the only person I know who takes this quite bizarre and potentially dangerous CAM, but he has done so for over half a century now and has suffered no adverse effects (that we can tell anyway)! This has led me to think about the origin of medicine and the evolution of modern medicine from ancient treatments: Long ago medicine meant ‘take this berry and see what happens’. Today, medicine means ‘take this drug (or several drugs) and see what happens, except we’ll write it down if it all goes wrong’. Just as evidence for modern therapies have been established, is there any known evidence for the ivy berry and what else is it used for? My grandfather gave me a second piece of practical advice this afternoon, in relation to the treatment of open wounds: To stop bleeding cover the wound in a bundle of spiders web. You can collect webs by wrapping them up with a stick, then slide the bundle of webs off the stick onto the wound and hold it in place. If the wound is quite deep then cover the wound in ground white pepper. I have no idea whether these two tips actually work but they reminded me of ‘QuickClot’ (http://www.z-medica.com/healthcare/About-Us/QuikClot-Product-History.aspx) a powder that the British Army currently issues to all its frontline troops for the treatment of wounds. The powder is poured into the wound and it forms a synthetic clot reducing blood loss. This technology has been a life-saver in Afghanistan but is relatively expensive. Supposing that crushed white pepper has similar properties, wouldn’t that be cheaper? While I appreciate that the two are unlikely to have the same level of efficacy, I am merely suggesting that we do not necessarily dismiss old layman’s practices without a little investigation. I intend to go and do a few searches on pubmed and google but just thought I’d put this in the public domain and see if anyone has any corroborating stories. If your grandparents have any rather strange but potentially useful health tips I’d be interested in hearing them. You never know they may just be the treatments of the future!  

Over 20% of UK medical students have used our exam room to revise. It's one of the most heavily utilised parts of Meducation and one of the most popular. But it's been a while since we did any work on it, something that we're about to rectify! We want to give you the opportunity to tell us how to make it even better! What's There Already? To recap where we're at currently. We have: Thousands of questions (a mixture of SBAs, MCQs and EMQs) split into over 30 categories. You can take exams of between 10 and 50 questions. You can time your exam if you're Premium You can compare your results in each question to the rest of the community and, if you're Premium, your medical school or year. You can comment on questions and vote them up or down. What Do You Want Improving? So this is your opportunity. What does a perfect online exam revision section look like? What features would you love? What annoys you? We want make the perfect section to help you practice for your exams, so please tell us what you want included. Post a comment below with your ideas on. If you agree with what someone else has said, please vote their comment up. Those that get voted up lots, we'll definitely try and implement!  

There are loads of survival guides out there to help medical students adapt well to university life but which ones should you be taking notice of? I’ve put together a list of my top 6 must reads - I hope you find them useful. 1. BMJ’s Guide for Tomorrow's Doctors If you don’t read anything else, read this. It covers everything from the pros and cons of using the library to essential medical websites (check out number 6 on the list :D). http://doc2doc.bmj.com/assets/secure/survivemedicalschool.pdf 2. Money Matters Ok, this isn’t the most exciting topic but definitely a stress you could do without. The Money Saving Expert gives some great advice on how to make money and manage your finances. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-guide 3. Studying This guide includes 4 simple but essential study tips relevant throughout your years at university. http://blog.auamed.org/blog/bid/291655/Survival-Guide-for-First-Year-Medical-Students-Study-Strategies 4. Dos and Don’ts Some great advice from Dundee University here on the dos and don’ts of surviving medical school. http://lifeofadundeemedstudent.wordpress.com/dundee/life-in-dundee/medical-student-survival-tips/ 5. Advice to Junior Doctors Karin shares some of her hospital experiences and gives advice to junior doctors. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/808795 6. Looking after yourself To get the most out of university it’s important that you look after yourself. The NHS provide some great tips from eating healthily on a budget to managing stress during exam time. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/studenthealth/Pages/Fivehealthsecrets.aspx If you know of any other useful survival guides or would like to create your own please send them across to me nicole@meducation.net. Nicole  

Cultural change could be just what's needed All of us, at some time, will have experiences of being a patient. At such times we might feel vulnerable as we look to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals for help and advice. While most of our experiences will be positive, a significant minority of us will experience difficulties in our interactions with healthcare professionals. For example last year, following a spate of similar reports across the UK, the Older People's Commissioner for Wales found consistent issues concerning the lack of dignity and respect patients received in hospital. These situations can cause real distress for patients, undermine the effectiveness of clinical treatment and sometimes impacts on how fast we might recover. I am interested in how this state of affairs comes about within an NHS that promotes respect, dignity and compassion for all. My research examines what happens to healthcare students during their training in clinical settings that means they sometimes have to be reminded that the person in front of them is a human who deserves compassion and respect. Today's healthcare students are explicitly taught about what comprises professional values and behaviours. However, a large part of learning to become a healthcare professional occurs within the NHS as they observe their seniors – who act as powerful role models – interacting with patients. Sometimes these role models were trained many years ago and belong to a different culture of medicine with different ways of doing things. People who belong to the same cultural group tend to embrace common characteristics such as language, customs and values. In doing this they embrace a common "cultural identity" and achieve a sense of belonging. Likewise, healthcare students tend to embrace common characteristics of their chosen profession. They look to their seniors for guidance about how to behave. But what if their seniors belong to a different era where things that were acceptable then may no longer be acceptable now? One strand of my research examines professionalism dilemma situations. These are situations in which healthcare students find themselves witnessing or participating in something unethical or unprofessional. These include witnessing, and sometimes participating in, breaches of patient safety and dignity. Students often report experiencing distress in such situations as they know the right way to behave, but feel unable to do so for some reason. In their stories, students frequently report feeling unable to speak out for fear of receiving poor grades as their seniors are also their teachers, because they are low in the pecking order or because speaking out might hamper their future career. So how can we support tomorrow's healthcare students to become ethical and compassionate professionals? Revalidation for doctors is coming into force and involves patient and colleague feedback. But our research suggests that, by itself, this is insufficient to change behaviours. We urge healthcare schools to provide students with a safe place to share their stories with each other and with ethical role models so they can begin to make sense of their experiences, share good practice and ways to resist bad practice. Most of all, we suggest that cultural change should occur from within. Patients, patient advocates, students and healthcare professionals should join together to examine how language, practices and values occurring within clinical settings can be developed to improve patient safety and dignity for all.