"Speed-hacking", Lord Owen and Dinner

Yesterday I took part in "speed-hacking". A special type of speed dating which doesn't involve flirting, finding a date or taking care to wear the right shade of lipstick. 

In actual fact it was a new type of session with the Medical Journalist Association for lonely or aspiring medical writers to meet the right experienced medical writers/editors to talk to.

Ashley McKimm organised the session and founded JuniorDr magazine and was one of the medical editors I spoke to.

We had 7 minutes to chat to each expert and ask them key questions about the trade, before moving onto the next person or having a break to prepare for later. 

I think "Speed-hacking" is an art in itself. With the first expert I spoke to I had prepared a long list of well thought out questions to ask. I sat down, introduced myself, he introduced himself, I responded and then the bell went. It was over in a flash.

So trying to learn from mistakes, I tried to keep my introduction to a quick sentence the next time round. 

Across the Spectrum

It was good opportunity to talk to a broad range of editors and writers, because even the specific speciality of medical journalism has diversity within itself.  

For example, I spoke two completely different editors, Olivia Timbs, who is the Pharmaceutical Journal editor and Lee Rodwell, who is the health editor of Take a Break magazine.

Lord Owen

The "Speed-hack" was followed by a speech by Lord Owen, who talked about famous world leaders and their attached illnesses. He mentioned "hubris syndrome" as one of them, a semi invented jokey problem which he said leaders and their egos often face.

Just as an observation, Lord Owen is obviously a very intelligent man as he appeared to hold thoughts in his head for very long periods of time and came back to them much later on, combining them all, meaning he was able to speak in very long sentences.

Interesting People

The evening finished with a dinner and everyone could speak to anyone for as long as thought polite, which in my case was determined by who I was sat next to. I was sitting next to a consultant surgeon who had just written a book on addictions. 

He believed that everyone should relax on the subject of drugs, smoking and alcohol. The law being there or not, people have always, still do and always will getting addicted to various substances. 

The cheese and biscuits appeared at the end of the table for him to go pick up, before I was able to hear the rest of his conclusions. Maybe I should read his book.

I also spoke to a young medical student, who had come out of her gap year traveling in Ghana. She told me of some shocking stories where she had witnessed an appendix being removed, when the patient woke up during the operation.

Talking of frightening stories, by the end of the evening, it was a bit later than expected so I didn't move onto a friend's Halloween party. However I felt very privileged to have been to such an event. It was an experience.

Making the World a Better Place

Last week I went to Madrid and joined the World Health Youth (WHY) communication network. 

You can read about my trip on the student bmj website.

It was certainly an insightful experience on health and the environment and involved three days talking to young journalists from all over Europe and central Asia. 

One speaker from the WHO did a survey of the 20 international journalists on how they rated their countries performance on dealing with environmental issues. On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest, most gave a 2 or 3. 

The speaker however gave Russia and Kazakhstan a 2, Slovakia and Lithuania a 3/4 and Denmark and the UK a 4/5. Often it feels we are never doing enough to save our planet, but perhaps relatively speaking we are. I shall however, continue to reuse my shopping bags.

The Cord Blood Bank

Last Thursday I went to the London Regenerative Medicine Network meeting. It was kick started with a talk on banking umbilical cord blood stem cells.  David Macauley, Chief Executive of  the Virgin Health Bank, gave the talk. 

The bank is a collaboration between Richard Branson's Virgin group and Merlin Biosciences and the idea is for mothers to put umbilical cord blood into the bank, where it is stored at -196 degrees C. A proportion of the cord blood is saved for private use by the family and the rest for the public. 

In a video clip of Richard Branson, he said: "This is something I'm absolutely passionate about...I think we can save lives." The umbilical cord blood is a source of stem cells which can be used to treat paediatric disorders, such as leukemia and sickle cell disease.

To store the cord blood it would cost £1500 per individual. Macauley made a point of telling everyone that the project was "truly ethical" and that it was not a profit making business. 

Professor Pete Coffey gave a talk also, on his aim to deliver a human stem cell therapy for a particular cause of blindness called age-related macular degeneration by 2011. 

Websites, health stories and Jon Snow's tie

Stood on a top floor of the Millbank tower in Westminster, I couldn’t have had a better panoramic view of London lit up at night. On the 13^th day of this month, I was lucky enough to have an invite to the launch of new sections of the high profile website health talk online.

Three well-known guests Jonathan Miller, Philip Pullman and Jon Snow were there to launch the website with words of praise and support for the charity run website. The website allows patients to express their illness to others and to share their life experiences online.

It is known as, The Database of Individual Patient Experience with people’s stories of 50 different diseases and there are prospects to include an extra 3000.

As a student medic/journalist and the whole launch being an entirely new experience for me, I  was interested to hear what Jonathan Miller, a multi talented, neurologist, author, opera director, sculptor and television presenter, had to say of the website.

He explained that today, due to the huge advances in science and technology, perhaps the detailed history taking of patients’ that were once essential to making a diagnosis are now often neglected, and that:

“Patients may be too ashamed, too shy or think there’s not enough time to ask a question…the website gives attention to detail that doctors can seem too busy to find out."

Jon Snow, a very tall man, said that the launching of the website, “has been a very interesting period for journalism”. He ended the evening with an auction of items including a signed copy of one of Philip Pullman’s personally signed books, fetching £350.

Jon Snow’s colourful yellow, pink, black and turquoise tie worn on the TV the night the banks were nationalised, sold for £325. A lot for something he called on the night, his “old rag”.

A strip of red tape too far?

So there's been the smoking ban in public places. There'll soon be horrifying graphic images on every packet of cigarettes. There was the ban of unhealthy snacks being sold in schools and now there is the demand for them to be banned in the NHS, which I agreed with yesterday. 

But is there rather too much red tape being spun out too quickly? 

Now there's to be a new system of government restrictions on alcohol. Alcoholic drinks are not to be promoted as a means of increasing social, sexual, physical, mental, financial or sporting performance, I read in the "Sunday Times" today. Instead, messages quite the opposite are to be conveyed.

"Happy hours" will be banned in bars, wine in restaurants will have to be served in glasses with marked measures, cocktails will not be allowed to be given names such as "Sex on the beach", health warnings will have to be put up wherever alcohol is served... and the list goes on.

Is anyone that so much as smokes a cigarette, eats a chocolate bar or drinks more than one glass of wine eventually going to be made to feel ashamed of their image of "anti social and self destructing" behaviours? All because of the daily messages of fear the government attaches to these sometimes comforting habits. 

It is slightly patronising to assume that the public in general cannot be responsible for their own drinking habits. Sometimes people can be irresponsible, but should we all have to be confronted with these constant reminders of everything we do is wrong. 

To have the fear of God drummed into us, that we may die if we take another sip of beverage isn't so nice when you just want to go out in the evenings to relax and have a sociable drink or two.

Friendly vending machines

Finally, here is a fat busting plan I agree with. It doesn't involve pills or surgery or even shocking pictures for that matter, but this time it's vending machines. Well it is actually a plan for healthy teeth and just health in general, but I'm sure it would help dieters too. 

The British Dental Health Foundation have said that vending machines of fruit juice, water and healthy snacks should be put in NHS hospitals. The government agree that the NHS and public sector should act as the role model for the rest of the nation by promoting healthy eating.

According to the BDHF, many schools have already managed to cut out the fat and sugary snacks from their vending machines and now it's the hospitals turn. It is ironic having nurses telling patient's to lose weight in clinic and as soon as they walk out the door they're faced with a vending machine pulling you in and tempting you to buy chocolate. Just as it is when you see a MacDonalds sign just underneath a permanent hospital welcome banner. 

It is likely that money is made for the NHS through the sales of chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks. Would healthy snacks bring in as much? And would they be more expensive? However,I feel the counterproductive and confusing message of there being fatty, additive filled snacks in hospitals is more likely to cause a greater cost in the long run in money and even in lives. 

Give fat a shock

Yesterday the news warned that you could be at risk if you go abroad for "obesity surgery". 

The BBC discovered that a Belgian doctor was happy to offer the procedure, gastric banding, which curbs eating, even for those who were too slim.

A lady from Bristol was given the gastric banding in Belgium and ended up not being able to swallow a thing, including liquids. 

Obesity pills, obesity surgery and obesity diets: they just don't seem to be working. 

Why is it so difficult to stop the nation eating so much? Smoking is on the decrease, so why isn't the other NHS biggy, obesity? 

Maybe the government should ask sweets and fast food manufacturers to put shockingly nasty pictures on their packaging if it has a fat content above a threshold value. 

Perhaps not as shocking as people coughing up tumours or dead bodies, just enough to put you off your food. 

 

Drug diet

There is now a potential pathway to finding anti-obesity drugs. However it might mess up your immune system as well, therefore scientists are still tentative. I am sceptical. Is taking medication really the right answer to reducing weight? It's debatable whether obesity can be medicated, as it isn't really a disease. 

Jamie Oliver's new TV show "Britain on a Plate", includes a woman who has 10 packets of crisps for dinner. His aim is to reeducate the residents of the town about healthy eating. There has built controversy within the town he filmed in because some residents believe his show came across as patronizing and suggested everyone who lives there survives on exceedingly unhealthy diets.

Cutting out crisps probably isn't the only answer to reducing obesity. Anti obesity drugs, if they existed could ease morbidly obese people into better health more smoothly. Oliver certainly does put families to shame with their eating habits. Perhaps the tone of the show didn't hit the right notes with the residents, however I do agree that diet should be the most fundamental option for losing weight. 

Medication could easily swing the focus away from the fundamentals of healthy eating and exercise to maintain weight. I don't believe a slimming pill would deal with the underlying problems in our society and how weight is controlled. 

*According to the new research the more you eat, the hungrier you become. When US researchers gave mice a diet high in fat and sugar they started eating more. This was said to be due to a protein being switched on, which caused inflammatory reactions. The inflammatory reaction appears to be related to appetite because when the protein pathway was genetically removed, the mice stayed slim, despite their fatty and high in sugar diets. Therefore drugs that control the inflammatory pathway could help control our weight.*

The house hunt

What a trouble it is to find somewhere to rent in London. I am a student, but feel as though I have been one long enough to qualify for a place without chewing gum trodden into the carpet and remnants of peoples names scribbled on the walls in tomato ketchup. 

 

Where do you start? Price? Convenience? Noise? Prettiness? Friendliness? What really is more important? The credit crunch may actually work in my favour in the case of price *gasp* . With more finding it difficult to sell houses, this has led to more people renting properties. In which case leads to more accommodation up for rent. And perhaps in addition there are fewer looking for rented accommodation as more students decide to live with parents in order to save money during these difficult times. So surely on that note, I have plenty of places to chose from at possibly lower prices.

 

I have looked at a couple of houses. One of which the landlady lived in with her 3 grandchildren and 6 other students and my potential bedroom was shown to be next to the main entrance. Noisy maybe? However it was very close to the tube station. Convenient I thought. And the landlady was lovely. Definitely friendly. In terms of prettiness and price, they scored average. 

 

The other house I looked at had... hardly any furniture. In fact my potential bedroom had none at all. It was a rather too healthy walk away from the tube station, had no internet, and was inhabited by fresher students who sounded subtly but concretely disappointed when I announced I was in my 4th year at university. I felt so old. 

 

So my search continues. Until then, I stay on the sofa bed in my relatives flat. At least it has furniture.

Warm and happy

Apparently, according to the Metro, "smoking is depressing". Literally it makes you feel down in the dumps. 

I thought that nicotine was suppose to make you feel happy, that's why people do it, but in actual fact in the long term it's a vicious circle of - depressed --> smoke -- > happy -- > depressed --> smoke etc.

And apparently, according to the University of Toronto, "Loneliness makes you cold". Literally it makes one shiver and desire hot soup if you feel lonely.

Health tips of the day - don't smoke and go surround yourself with people and perhaps we'll be one step closer to being warm and happy people.