Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, June 2018

The first instalment of a new series of Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries is now online at http://www.drhairy.org/concrete5/index.php/research-summaries/ . Subjects covered this time:

Managing migraine in pregnancy

BMJ 2018;360:k80

Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

BMJ 2018;360:k322

Ultra-processed foods and cancer

BMJ 2018;360:k599

End non-essential use of antimicrobials in livestock

BMJ 2018;360:k259

Bringing Vioxx back to market

BMJ 2018;360:k242

Conflicting asthma guidelines cause confusion in primary care

BMJ 2018;360:k29

Secondary prevention following myocardial infarction: a clinical update

Br J Gen Pract 2018; 68 (668): 151-152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X695261

Sexual orientation disclosure in health care: a systematic review

Br J Gen Pract 29 January 2018; bjgp18X694841. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X694841

Cancer risk associated with chronic diseases and disease markers: prospective cohort study

BMJ 2018;360:k134

Mortality from different causes associated with meat, heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study: population based cohort study

BMJ 2017;357:j1957

Eosinophilic esophagitis: update on management and controversies

BMJ 2017;359:j4482

 

Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, Volume 4

The entire 2017-18 series of Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, in book form. 130 summaries, plus 13 true-or-false quizzes, in plain English. We’ve even put in some jokes to keep things interesting! If you want a lively and easy-to-digest way of keeping up with what’s going on in medical research, this is it!

All for only £15! To place an order, click here.

Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, March 2018

Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries & quiz for March 2018 are now online. Subjects covered this time:

Can we usefully stratify patients according to suicide risk?
BMJ 2017;359:j4627
Low vitamin D levels as a risk factor for cancer
BMJ 2017;359:j4761BMJ 2017;359:j4761
The responses to the “cancer drugs scandal” must fully involve patients—an essay by Tessa Richards
BMJ 2017;359:j4956
How Europe copes with flu
BMJ 2018;360:k266
Sixty seconds on . . . loneliness
BMJ 2018;360:k300
“Where there is life, there is hope”
BMJ 2018;360:j5920
Trimethoprim use for urinary tract infection and risk of adverse outcomes in older patients: cohort study
BMJ 2018;360:k341
Large study is “robust” evidence of link between chronic heavy drinking and dementia
BMJ 2018;360:k814
Are expanding disease definitions unnecessarily labelling women with polycystic ovary syndrome?
BMJ 2017;358:j3694
Sex robots: the irreplaceable value of humanity
BMJ 2017;358:j3790

This is the last set of Research Summaries in the present series: we’ll now take a couple of months off to put this series in book form and prepare ourselves for the next one, which will probably commence in June or July.

The 3rd Cranbrook Video Festival – ‘Family’

Click here for the full programme

The third Cranbrook Video Festival took place on Saturday 17th February at 12 o’clock in the Crane Surgery, Cranbrook, Kent. This year the theme of the festival was ‘Family’.

Contributors came from the USA, Belgium and Russia as well as the UK. There were animations, dramas, documentaries and experimental films, from both amateurs and professional film-makers.

The theme of the festival this year was ‘Family’. This grew out of the theme of last year’s festival, ‘Wellbeing’. Family turned out to be the thing most people thought of as essential to their wellbeing: but some of the films in this year’s lineup showed the negative aspects of family, as well as the positives. ‘Voicing Silence’ by Lucy Lee is about child abuse, a how hard it is for the victims of abuse to speak out about their experiences. ‘Lint People’ by Helder K Sun is a Freudian comedy-animation about a community of creatures made out of fluff, in which the father-figure is always trying to devour his own children.

The first half of the show was taken up by a screening of my own feature-length puppet-animation ‘Dr Hairy and the QCQ’. I was a bit worried that ninety minutes it might be too long for an audience unfamiliar with my style, but in fact it seemed to go down very well and got some big laughs. Of the other animations in the show, the one that seemed to make the biggest impression on people was the very beautiful ‘My Strange Grandfather’ by the Russian film-maker Dina Velikovskaya; and of the acted films, the standout was probably ‘Brian and Charles’, directed by Jim Archer, written by and starring David Earl and Chris Hayward – an oddly touching comedy about a lonely man’s love-hate relationship with his pet robot. A special mention should also go to the mini-documentary ‘The Reinvention of Normal’ by Liam St Pierre, a brilliantly original mixture of animation and ‘real-life’ footage about the inventor/artist Dominic Wilcox and his ideas.

As with previous festivals, one of the highlights was to have one of the contributors there – Jenni Cresswell, a textile artist from Brighton, who presented her own video, ‘Bound Together’, about a book that was passed on to her by her mother.

The standard of contributions in the festival is definitely getting higher year-on-year, which makes it a very exciting thing to be part of.

Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, Jan 2018 (a bit late again)

The latest Research Summaries and Quiz have just gone online. Subjects covered this time:

Eating disorders in children and young people
BMJ 2017;359:j5245
Modifiable pathways in Alzheimer’s disease: Mendelian randomisation analysis
BMJ 2017;359:j5375
Effectiveness of and overdiagnosis from mammography screening in the Netherlands: population based study
BMJ 2017;359:j5224
Patient centred diagnosis of dementia: we must listen to patients’ wishes
BMJ 2017;359:j5524
NICE to ban mesh for vaginal wall prolapse
BMJ 2017;359:j5523
Japan’s government warns against abnormal behaviour in people taking antivirals for flu
BMJ 2017;359:j5529
Use of an electronic consultation system in primary care: a qualitative interview study
Br J Gen Pract 6 November 2017; bjgp17X693509. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693509
Corneal ulcers in general practice
Br J Gen Pract 2018; 68 (666): 49-50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X694385
Hope is a therapeutic tool
BMJ 2017;359:j5469
Feel the heat: a short history of body temperature
BMJ 2017;359:j5697

To find out more about Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, please visit http://www.drhairy.org/concrete5/index.php/research-summaries/

 

Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, December 2017 (a bit late)

Slightly belatedly, Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries for December 2017 are now online. Subjects covered this time:

Improving access to allied health professionals through the Champlain BASE™ eConsult service: a cross-sectional study in Canada

Br J Gen Pract 2017; 67 (664): e757-e763. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693125

The role of the Quality and Outcomes Framework in the care of long-term conditions: a systematic review

Br J Gen Pract 25 September 2017; bjgp17X693077. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693077

Effectiveness of UK provider financial incentives on quality of care: a systematic review

Br J Gen Pract 9 October 2017; bjgp17X693149. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693149

Perioperative resources for GPs

Br J Gen Pract 2017; 67 (664): 529-530. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693437

Self-taken vaginal swabs versus clinician-taken for detection of candida and bacterial vaginosis: a case-control study in primary care

Br J Gen Pract 20 November 2017; bjgp17X693629. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693629

Variations in presentation, management, and patient outcomes of urinary tract infection: a prospective four-country primary care observational cohort study

Br J Gen Pract 2017; 67 (665): e830-e841. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X693641

Non-antibiotic options for recurrent urinary tract infections in women

BMJ 2017;359:j5193

Antibiotics or NSAIDs for uncomplicated urinary tract infection?

BMJ 2017;359:j5037

Management of chronic pain using complementary and integrative medicine

BMJ 2017;357:j1284

National commitment to shared decision making

BMJ 2017;359:j4746

For more information about Dr Hairy’s Research Summaries, please visit http://www.drhairy.org/concrete5/index.php/research-summaries/

Dr Hairy and the QCQ, part 9

The ninth in a new series of puppet-animations about the adventures and misadventures of an ordinary (but rather hirsute) GP.

Dr Hairy goes to visit his Mum, accompanied by his daughter Jenny. Dr Hairy’s Mum appears surprisingly clear-headed, and she also seems not to be wearing any hairclips: in fact all her hairclips seem to have gone missing. Then Dr Hairy ventures into the cupboard under the stairs, and finds out where all the hairclips have got to… with hilarious results!

YouTube – https://youtu.be/mnJWNmhBNMg
Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/243144099