By Cheri
As a Jon and Kate Plus 8 fanatic, I’m always amazed to hear about multiple births. Just this week octuplets were born in California, just the second time in the US that Octuplets were delivered alive. In a shocking twist, the mother was only expecting seven children but at birth they discovered an eighth child in the womb.
There’s no doubt that the dramatic rise in the birth of multiples over the past 20 years is due in large part to advancements in fertility treatments. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1995 the rate of triplets and multiple births was 127.5 per 100,000 births and this number grew in the late 90s to almost reach 200 per 100,000 births. However, from 2005 to 2006 the rate has declined 5% to 153.6 per 100,000 births. The reason for the decline is up for debate by scientists but initial speculation point to increased precision during fertility treatments.
What are your thoughts on possible explanations for the drop?
January 30th, 2009
By Rachel
A recent article published in GP, the weekly magazine aimed at UK healthcare professionals working in primary care, highlighted the risks associated with doctors participating in social networking sites. The article highlighted that doctors have found themselves before the General Medical Council (GMC) for making critical remarks, for example, about staff in the department of health, or by breaching patient confidentiality on doctor-only websites. In some cases, doctors may feel they are safe to criticise if they have not had to reveal their professional identify. However, this can easily be identified through the GMC.
The growth of social networking among the general population has been reflected in the medical field with sites springing up specifically for these audiences e.g. Sermo and Doctors.net.uk. An increasing number of healthcare professionals are also participating in public sites such as Facebook and MySpace. With social networking still in its early days and guidelines yet to be developed, healthcare professionals should be aware of some of the pitfalls and maintain a high level of professional conduct in the digital world as they would in the ‘real’ one.
However, perhaps we should be encouraging a free and open exchange between healthcare professionals in an age of increasing transparency. This is certainly being promoted in the patient community with the UK government planning an NHS website where patients can post messages about their experiences of GP practices. It seems only right that doctors should be able to have their say too.
January 29th, 2009
