Hilary's Desk

In his book, "How Doctor's Think", Dr Jerome Groopman describes an ultrasound doctor, who detects in a baby, inside a woman 5 weeks from giving birth, a strange shaped space inside the baby's brain which should look like a tear-drop with sharp edges, but just doesn't look quite right.  Not badly wrong, but just not quite right. Because the shape is pretty near normal, she almost doesn't tell the mother.  Two things change her mind. She wants to protect any obstetrician from being charged with causing damage to a baby, should it turn into something significant... and she also thinks parents should know in advance in case they need to consider the realities of bringing up a damaged child. The mother has an MRI, and a brain haemorrhage in the baby is discovered, so the birth is attended by paediatric neurologists.  Read Full Blog

“Warning on blood thinning medicine” rang out the headlines in the Herald on 10 June 2010, in an article which warned that warfarin can result in strokes. This type of article is particularly dangerous, because readers can assume that what is said is the only danger there is. Warfarin is way more dangerous than just causing strokes. Warfarin is a major nutrient robber, to the proportions of being a biological weapon of slow mass destruction. Read Full Blog