At the doctors' mercy

a report alleging that 20 per cent of assisted deaths in the Netherlands were carried out without the patient's permission has initiated renewed debate on the country's euthanasia laws. A research published in the Journal of Medical Ethics says doctors in Holland -- where voluntary euthanasia has been decriminalised since 1984 -- are ignoring guidelines intended to protect patients.

Double vision

saying brain surgery is a delicate business would be an understatement. Cut a little bit more here and the patient might end up blind, deaf or perhaps even paralysed. So knowing what lies beneath the tissue surface could be a life-saver.

A Doctor tension

A GERMAN physician noticed an illness about 250 years ago, which he coined the phrase "the pulse of the doctor". Now, the same illness has got a new name: white coat hypertension. It refers to an increase in the pulse rate and blood pressure (BP) of a patient when he gets them diagnosed at a doctor's clinic, as compared to when he does at home, the work place or at play. This variation, some doctors say, occurs because patients are nervous and undergo stress when they are diagnosed in a clinic. The result: they are mistakenly prescribed drugs for hypertension which tend to have

OUT WITH QUACKS

The health ministry in Pakistan has started a comprehensive campaign through the district health officers against quackery in the country. Strict action would be taken against quacks under Medical and Dental Degree Ordinance, 1982. Five cases against unqualified persons practising allopathic system of medicine have already been registered in this regard. According to a health ministry official, in the first phase, efforts are being made to check unqualified medical prac- titioners in Islamabad, so that Medical and Dental Degree Ordinance, 1982, could be enforced in letter and in spirit.

Beware of quacks

DELHI'S 30,000 quacks are primarily responsible for the rapid spread of the Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (TB). According to Rajesh Chawla, a chest specialist and president of the Delhi Medical Association, quacks do not understand the scientific basis of the new treatment known as the short course therapy. The association has been demanding that the government ban the quacks from practising medicine. But, beyond tabling of the Delhi Anti-Quackery Bill, their efforts have met with little success.

Lend me your hands

THE world's first hand transplant has been carried out by an international team of doctors at a French hospital. The right hand and forearm of an anonymous donor were attached to 48-year-old Australian Glint Hallam, whose hand was amputated in 1989 after an accident. Doctors attached "all the arteries, veins, nerves, tendons, muscles and skin after setting the two bones of the forearm", said a press release of the Edouard Herriot Hospital.

VENEZUELA

An indefinite strike by 7,000 public sector doctors is causing immense distress to the Venezuelan people who have already been facing the brunt of declining health care services for the last decade. The most affected are the poor, who depend on subsidised medical services provided in the government-run hospitals. The strike is a manifestation of the crisis caused by the slump in oil prices which has forced the government to make cuts worth us $4 billion from public spending.

IN FAVOUR OF QUACKS

The Madras High Court has allowed unqualified medical practitioners in Tamil Nadu to practice modern medicine with certain conditions. They have also been allowed to add the suffix 'UMP' to their name plates and letter heads used by them. Justice S S Subramani passed the order while disposing of the writ petitions filed by the All India Association of Private Medical Practitioners and others, seeking to regularise them and to prevent the police from interfering with their right to practise modern medicine.

The bad news is.

British doctors are quite poor at breaking bad news to patients, says a report from the Royal College of Physicians, UK. The report, titled Improving Communication Between Doctors and Patients, suggests formal training in the medical schools on how to communicate with patients who are very old, very young, mentally ill or from a different cultural background. When bad news about life-threatening illness is broken to a patient, the way it is communicated may have adverse effects on their psychological health.

Light from an area of darkness

scientists in developed countries are trying expensive combinations of drugs to prolong the lives of those infected with aids. But something quite different is going on in Africa, where aids has taken a far greater toll. Experts are finding new hope in an old warhorse: the common antibiotic.