TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| You too can be a medical* practitioner Simply register with the School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine and we'll give you a big impressive certificate*no medical training requiredDo you remember the traditional way to treat burns? Or what would happen to your face if the wind changed? If you think you can answer these questions, why not become a registered practitioner of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine?Tomorrow at 11.30am outside the Department of Health in London, a new professional registration scheme for practitioners in the medical tradition of Old Wives' Tales will be launched. A group of junior medics and scientists from the Voice of Young Science (VoYS) network will form the new VoYS School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine (pdf). They will hand out diplomas for people to practise Old Wives' Traditional Medicine, registering members of the public who can correctly answer questions about traditional cures and advice. The assessment is free of charge and absolutely no medical training or understanding of human physiology is required.Hang on a moment. Surely it is better to stop people practising medicine that isn't evidence-based rather than encourage it? Well, according to the Department of Health, to be worthy of a professional registration scheme all that really matters is for practitioners to be following traditional methods. In a Department of Health steering committee report, and a later consultation to look into how the government should regulate traditional medicine practitioners, a professional registration scheme was proposed. Just like the VoYS scheme, it would register practitioners for everything except whether a practitioner has medical training or whether the field is based on proper evidence. The VoYS School of Old Wives' Traditional Medicine is delighted with this proposed scheme, as it flatters practitioners just for following traditional methods, and does away with the need for any of that difficult medical training. And while Trading Standards and other schemes already regulate practitioners for standards of hygiene, English fluency and criminal records, a Department of Health stamp of approval is far more glamorous.But hang on a minute. What if you want little Johnny to be treated by someone with professional medical training? Could that lump that's appeared on the side of his face be indicative of something more serious than the wind changing while he pulled a face? Sense About Science and a group of professional societies including the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Institute of Biomedical Sciences are indeed concerned about the risks of misdiagnosis (pdf), dangerous drug interactions and the problems of blurring the line between what is and what is not medicine. But the new scheme has the Department of Health's approval, so there can't be anything to worry about, can there? And as the previous health minister Andy Burnham said: I believe that the introduction of such a register will increase public protection, but without the full trappings of professional recognition which are applied to practitioners of orthodox healthcare." Dr Tom Dolphin, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee, objects: Providing regulation that looks like the kind of regulation that real medicine gets adds an undeserved veneer of respectability to essentially unproven therapies ... If they are proper treatments then they will be covered by the existing medical regulations; if they're not, then there is no benefit to dressing them up as being on a par with actual medical practice." What a spoilsport. The Department of Health has reassured us, though, that a professional registration scheme that doesn't check for evidence or medical training is the right thing to do. Come and show the Department of Health your enthusiasm for more registration schemes that don't require medical training. Take the test tomorrow, 8 September, between 11.30 and 12.30 at the Department of Health on Whitehall to see if you too can get a diploma in the medical tradition of Old Wives' Tales. Julia Wilson is the VoYS Coordinator at Sense About ScienceControversies in scienceAlternative medicineHomeopathyRegulatorsHealth policyHealthDoctorsScience policyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Researcher digs into fish fossils past A student palaeontologist says he is trying to determine how to conserve fish species by researching fossils in western and north-west Queensland. abc.net.au |
Twitter co-founder steps down as CEO Twitter co-founder Evan Williams has stepped down as chief executive, handing over to a Google veteran brought in last year to help the micro-blogging service make money. abc.net.au |
Green: E.P.A. Seeks to Revoke Mining Permit The E.P.A. says Arch Coal's mitigation plan would be unable to reproduce natural streams' functions. feeds.nytimes.com |
Starwatch: The December night sky It is not just the weather that has turned wintry. That icon of our winter's sky, Orion, now stands clear of the ESE horizon at our star map times and climbs to dominate the S sky by midnight. The sparkling constellations that surround Orion include Taurus, above and to the right, and Gemini, above-left.The Moon lies just N of Orion, where Orion, Taurus and Gemini meet, when it passes through the N part of the Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse on the morning of the 21st. The Moon begins to enter the shadow's central dark umbra at 06:33 as it stands low in the WNW. Between 07:41 and 08:53 it lies in total eclipse in the umbra but may be hard to spot in the twilight as it sinks to set in NW shortly after sunrise.Just N of Castor in Gemini is the radiant of the Geminids meteor shower which lasts from the 7th to the 16th and is likely to peak on the morning of the 14th. Someone under a dark sky may see 100 slow meteors per hour as they diverge from the radiant and rain down in all directions.Jupiter, conspicuous (mag -2.5) and due S two hours before our map times, lies to the S of the Square of Pegasus and near the 1st quarter Moon on the 13th. Telescopes show it as 41 arcsec wide at midmonth and may already be revealing early signs of the return of the main dark cloud band in Jupiter's S hemisphere.Saturn, 10° above-right of Spica in Virgo and mag 0.8, rises in the E six hours after the map times. Venus is a dazzling morning star to the E of Spica. Rising at about 04:00, it dims from mag –4.7 to -4.5 as its crescent shrinks from 42 to 27 arcsec in diameter. The Moon is below-right of Venus (and below Spica) on Thursday and below-right of Venus again on the 31st. Mercury may be glimpsed very low in the SE just before dawn during the final week of the year.December diary1st 18h Moon 8Ëš S of Saturn; 16h Mercury farthest E of Sun (21Ëš)2nd 21h Moon 6Ëš S of Venus5th 18h New moon7th 09h Moon 1.8Ëš N of Mercury13th 14h First quarter14th 02h Moon 7Ëš N of Jupiter; 04h Mercury 1.0Ëš N of Mars; 06h Peak of Geminids meteor shower 20th 01h Mercury in inferior conjunction21st 08h Full moon and total lunar eclipse; 23:38 Winter solstice28th 04h Last quarter29th 03h Moon 8ËšS of Saturn31st16h Moon 7ËšS of VenusSpaceSatellitesAlan Pickupguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |