MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'gmc'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:30:41 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3339637&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F03%2Fjoys-of-retirement-bring-on-scooter.html  A short while ago, I retired.It's a strange business. In many ways, I had been looking forward to it but, when the day came, it was...well, strange. You do not really wind down. You finish an afternoon surgery on a Friday (well, that's what I did) and the new, young doctor takes over on the Monday. He is frighteningly well qualified  and I'm sure my patients will be in safe hands.In days gone by, retired doctors used to keep dabbling in medicine by doing locums. I've made the decision not to do that. For several reasons. I would worry about getting out of date. Yes, you can go on courses, and read the journals,  but the only way properly to keep up to speed is to work fairly regularly and I don't want to do that.Even if I did, there too many logistical difficulties. To do l... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3339637 Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:24:00 +0100 3339637 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703957&cid=t_130522_150_f&fid=36939&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscientific-misconduct.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F08%2Fconsultation.html A hallmark of the UK NuLabour government is the sham public "consultation". Over recent months, Universities have been "consulted" on new procedures for self investigation (and effective cover-up) of research fraud (see consultation). The General Medical Council is "consulting" about their (already reasonable) guidance for doctors who fake research - while they fail to deal with actual doctors who have brought shame on the clinical research enterprise. The GMC is also "consulting" on how it could "improve its procedures for handling Fitness to Practice cases".Much of what passes for "consultation" is theater designed to create an illusion that serious problems with these organisations are being addressed. I have yet to see actual examples of regulatory integrity lapses, cover-up and cock-u... Scientific Misconduct Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703957 Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:45:00 +0100 2703957 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2442753&cid=t_130522_150_f&fid=36939&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscientific-misconduct.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F05%2Fis-medicine-in-same-boat-as-catholic.html This post has nothing directly to do with scientific fraud, science or medicine. It is about recent reports of corruption and terrible evils that have taken place within the confines of the leadership of the Catholic Church. A few days ago a long-delayed investigation into Ireland’s Roman Catholic-run institutions was released. It chronicled how priests and nuns molested, abused and tortured thousands of boys and girls for decades. More importantly it documented how those in authority, government officials, and government inspectors failed to stop the beatings, rapes and abuse. The report concludes that church officials shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest, amid a culture of self-serving secrecy. They turned a blind eye. In the United Kingdom, we have medical "regulatory" bodies... Scientific Misconduct Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2442753 Sat, 23 May 2009 19:21:00 +0100 2442753 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2263927&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F03%2Fhow-gmc-spends-our-money.html All doctors in the UK have to be registered with the GMC.The GMC currently charges each doctor £390 a year for full registration. According to the GMC there are 232,220 registered doctors in the UK.232,220 x £390 = £90,565,800Wow! That’s a lotta dosh. How does the GMC manage to spend nearly £2 million a week? I am grateful to an angry NHS BLOG DOCTOR reader who has pointed me towards the answer. You can find it on the GMC website under the title Why work for the GMC? Lots of reasons it would seem. Huge salaries and an indexed linked final salary pension. Index linked not just to the cost of living, but to GMC salaries. Wow! I must get Wat Tyler to provide a costing for purchasing such a pension on the open market. But what makes the NHS BLOG DOCTOR commentator really angry, is this:F... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2263927 Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:54:00 +0100 2263927 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2227144&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F03%2Fmedical-negligence-robbie-powell-update.html Robbie PowellLast week, in “It doesn’t get bleaker than this”,  we looked briefly at the case of Robbie Powell who died at the age of ten from Addison’s disease. I was going to say “undiagnosed” Addision’s disease, but the word “ignored” would be more nearly correct.The most recent legal hearing was a few days ago. The Powell family have just let me have a summary and update of the continuing case. If you are interested in justice, or in this case in justice denied,  it is essential reading. Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Legal I get a number of emails from patients and families dissatisfied with care provided by the NHS. Some are vexatious. I wish I could say they all are. Time after time after time people say �... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2227144 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:41:00 +0100 2227144 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2132256&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F01%2Fmedical-advertising.html George Jones is a specialist rheumatologist (properly qualified - he has an MB BS and an MRCP) and works exclusively from two London private clinics, one in Wimpole Street, and one in St John’s Wood. He must be good. Over the years, he has collected a number of celebrity clients. He displays their names, and their testimonials. prominently on his website:"George is an amazing healer, often able to correct things that no one else can. His technique...brings about a deep sense of emotional well being coupled with terrific physical results. At the end of a treatment one feels entirely put back together. I rely on George heavily to get me through any difficult period, physical, emotional or otherwise."Gwyneth Paltrow 
"George has been pummelling me for years and I still live to tell the ta... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2132256 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:16:00 +0100 2132256 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1920925&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F10%2Fmore-bacon-scraps.html BaconThe last thing I did before my summer break was write an article on the appalling Neil Bacon and his even more appalling website on which he attempts to categorise doctors in the way one might categorise washing powder. Rita has not taken a summer break. Armed with the Freedom of Information Act she has been extracting information from the GMC about their relationship with Bacon and in particular has accessed and published some fascinating correspondence and emails. Full details hereUncharacteristically for Rita, she has made one factual error, an error she will I know be only to happy to put right. She has referred to him as a “nephrologist”. The man on the street might take that to mean that Bacon is some sort of medical specialist. In fact, despite having qualified as a doctor ... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1920925 Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:34:00 +0100 1920925 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1652300&cid=t_130522_111_f&fid=34834&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FMentalNurse%2F%7E3%2F344536863%2F Now I know we’re not a ‘medical blog’, but somethings a-stir lately amongst the medics. That Neil Bacon fellow (essentially an inadequate doctor who pretends he was a renal specialist but decided to go for the dot.com fortune instead with doctors.net.uk) has started something most annoying to the medical fraternity. I won’t link to any of it (except Shrink’s post on the subject and 360 degree feedback - but only cos he’s an honorary nurse*). You know where the rest of it is. So what’s up? Well in a nutshell he’s started a ‘rating’ site for doctors (Bacon - not Shrink) - with anonymous submissions from.. well, anyone. It’s a bit crass - actually it’s extremely crass - and I sympathise with the medics - (in the same way ... Mental Nurse blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1652300 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:30:11 +0100 1652300 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1532423&cid=t_130522_150_f&fid=36939&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscientific-misconduct.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F06%2Ffall-of-general-medical-council-part-i.html Last week I received a tentative invitation (via the group Justice in Health) to "attend" an "event" at Westminster on 24 July 2008. The event "The Future of Health Professional Regulation" is hosted by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) and the Department of Health. It is supposedly about sorting out professional medical regulators in the interests of patients.I will not be attending. Sham public consultation has become a dismal hallmark of this Labour government. They have not learned to listen.One of those regulators is the General Medical Council (GMC). The GMC is the body that registers and is supposed to "regulate" the integrity and "fitness to practice" of UK medical doctors. This is an important job. The GMC have a huge credibility problem.If the DoH and the Ge... Scientific Misconduct Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1532423 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:46:00 +0100 1532423 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1437352&cid=t_130522_150_f&fid=36939&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscientific-misconduct.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F05%2Flsd-and-corruption-of-medicine-part-v.html This is the last in a series of posts marking the death of Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD.Over two decades starting in 1953 a CIA project named MK-ULTRA controlled a U.S. academic chemical interrogation research program. The seeds for many of the current problems of medicine lie in the story of MK-ULTRA. The research involved murder and the torture of tens of thousands of unwitting human participants. MK-ULTRA set the standard for later industrial-university collaboration. It set the most important precedent for the collusion of academic leadership and civilized government with scientific misconduct. It was the most flagrant violation of the just-signed Nuremberg code of ethics.Porton Down LSD testsExperiments on "unwitting" humans involving LSD and other agents were also carried out in t... Scientific Misconduct Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1437352 Mon, 12 May 2008 19:09:00 +0100 1437352 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1309026&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F03%2Fboxing-abortions-and-gmc.html The GMC has been pronouncing on matters of conscience.— You must not allow any personal views about patients to prejudice your assessment of their clinical needs, [including] patient’s age, culture, disability, gender, lifestyle, marital status, race, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status— You should not normally discuss your personal beliefs with patients unless those beliefs are directly relevant to their care— Patients may ask you to perform, advise on, or refer them for a treatment...to which you have a conscientious objection. In such cases you must tell patients of their right to see another doctor— You must be open with patients – both in person and in printed materials such as practice leaflets – about any treatments or procedures which you choose not to pr... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1309026 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:50:00 +0100 1309026 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1305349&cid=t_130522_140_f&fid=35436&url=http%3A%2F%2Fseroxatsecrets.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F03%2F15%2F563%2F Back in January 2007 was when I first wrote about Lisa Blakemore Brown - she was being prosecuted by the British Psychological Society (BPS) at the time regarding her alleged lack of fitness to practice psychology due to “paranoia”: Commenting on tonight’s Panorama programme “Secrets of the Drug Trials” the editor in chief of the British Medical Journal, Fiona Godlee writes “Panorama’s account of GlaxoSmithKline’s successful attempts to market Seroxat for use in children, despite the fact that its own published trial found evidence of serious adverse effects and failed to show benefit, is fascinating but depressingly familiar. The Vioxx story, told last week (BMJ 20 January, p 120), appears to have all the same hallmarks, including the paying of opinion leaders and... seroxat secrets... blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1305349 Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:49:03 +0100 1305349 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=823597&cid=t_130522_140_f&fid=35436&url=http%3A%2F%2Fseroxatsecrets.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F08%2F27%2Flisa-blakemore-brown-the-british-psychological-society-dr-rita-pal-and-the-gmc-2%2F Still more on this sorry tale of the GMC and the way it does business. My first post on the story can be found here. Now, I’d suggest you all go here to read the latest from Dr Aubrey Blumsohn at Scientific Misconduct. The GMC (like the MHRA) has remained silent about the most serious and damaging integrity failures in medicine. This includes several cases of misrepresentation of commercially motivated pharmaceutical research (by doctors) which has led to untold suffering by patients. To facilitate the integrity lapses, all the GMC had to do was to do nothing - and they have done nothing with unparalleled skill. (Source: seroxat secrets...) seroxat secrets... blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=823597 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:01:28 +0100 823597 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=818824&cid=t_130522_140_f&fid=35436&url=http%3A%2F%2Fseroxatsecrets.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F08%2F23%2Flisa-blakemore-brown-the-british-psychological-society-dr-rita-pal-and-the-gmc%2F Sorry to be late with this story, but I’m back in the chair now after spending a couple of weeks in Northumberland on the north east coast of England (which is where I come from - but even I never get used to the weather that we are treated to from time to time!) I’m sure regular readers of pharma blogs may well know the story of Dr Lisa Blakemore-Brown - I’ve written about her case here, here and here. So has another blogger - a British doctor named Rita Pal who writes for the NHS Exposed blog and she linked to a document on the Furious Seasons website which is transcript of Blakemore-Brown’s British Psychological Society hearing. The problem is that the BPS wanted to keep the transcript private (Blakemore-Brown did not). It seems that Dr Pal has lost her job over ... seroxat secrets... blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=818824 Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:53:00 +0100 818824 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=741437&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34882&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbreathspakids.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fshould-bmj-blog-gmc-fitness-to-practise.html There are repeated complaints about the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Hearings. Many of the hearings are justifiably closed to the public because they involve close scrutiny of otherwise confidential medical records. In the case of the current hearing that involve Profs Walker-Smith and Murch with Dr Andrew Wakefield, the medical records of most of the children in the Lancet paper are already partly in the public domain. These hearings are open to the public and will be reported upon by various media. However, so far, much of the coverage is associated with mis-information.The BMJ has editorial blogs. Would it be interesting to have the blog perspective of relevantly qualified and experienced people on these and other relevant hearings that involve public interest? Would th... Breath Spa for Kids blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=741437 Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:17:00 +0100 741437 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=729786&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fkilling-babies-gmc-sanctions-euthanasia.html Dr Michael MunroIt may be linguistically correct to call pancuronium a muscle “relaxant” – it is – but in common parlance it would be more accurate to state that pancuronium causes complete muscle paralysis and makes it impossible to breath.In Belgium and the Netherlands, Pancuronium is recommended in the protocol for euthanasia. After administering sodium thiopental to induce coma, Pancuronium is delivered in order to stop breathing.It is also used as one component of a lethal injection used in capital punishment in some parts of the USA. If improperly administered it can cause sodium thiopental, commonly used as the anesthetic in the lethal injection process, to precipitate and become ineffective. Pancuronium bromide has no analgesic effects, and if this precipitation renders the... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=729786 Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:32:00 +0100 729786 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=723166&cid=t_130522_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fandrew-wakefield-mmr-autism-and-gmc.html In conclusion, the Wakefield study was scientifically flawed on numerous counts. I am surprised that neither the editor nor the reviewers spotted these flaws when the paper was submitted. Had they done so, the public would have been saved the confusion and anxiety caused by false credibility conveyed by publication of the study in this prestigious journal.Professor Trisha Greenhalgh OBE MD FRCP FRCGPIt gets worse.There is a background suggestive of moral and financial corruption which has been extensively described by Brain Deer, the investigative journalist. Full details here.It is this background, more than the incorrect conclusions, that has finally brought Andrew Wakefiled in front of the GMC. The GMC does not regard its remit as extending to arbitrating between competing scientific th... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=723166 Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:57:00 +0100 723166