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| 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 |
US-born panda gives birth to her 8th cub in China By 2010-09-19T06:47:11ZBEIJING (AP) -- An American-born panda gave birth to her eighth cub in southwest China, a rare accomplishment for the endangered species known for being poor breeders.... hosted.ap.org |
Congress backs Obama plan on NASA's future By JIM ABRAMS 2010-09-30T03:50:36ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress approved a blueprint for NASA's future Wednesday that extends the life of the space shuttle program for a year while backing President Barack Obama's intent to use commercial carriers to lift humans into near-Earth space.... hosted.ap.org |
Green: Bedbug Rider Looms in Real Estate Deals In recent weeks, some lawyers representing co-op and condo buyers have made bedbug disclosure a part of contract negotiation. feeds.nytimes.com |
Guardian Style digested, by John Crace | Mind your language Grammar is the set of rules followed by speakers of a language, innit? By everyone except Guardian writersWelcome to the latest edition of Guardian Style, a book that will be as little read by Guardian journalists as the previous ones, if the number of inaccuracies in the paper are anything to go by.But for the rest of you who take an interest in the dustier reaches of the English language, I thought I'd use this space to highlight the changes the hacks are sure to ignore.Grammar is the set of rules followed by speakers of a language, innit? By everyone except Guardian writers, that is, so I have pulled together all the dreary grammatical stuff on commas, colons and split infinitives to the front in the hope – rather than expectation – that just one member of staff bothers to have a look before putting their complimentary copy on eBay.Over the years it has distressed me greatly to see that Guardian journalists consistently try to write foreign languages in a way that would be intelligible to native speakers. Quite simply this has to stop. Allowing the odd acute accent to prevent lame being read as lame is as far as I am prepared to go.It's time that Johnny Foreigner met us halfway. The day the Frogs stop calling the English Channel La Manche and call it La Manche Anglaise is the day I use a circumflex.Occasionally, however, I do bow to public demand. In the last edition I arbitrarily changed aeroplane to airplane. This triggered the largest number of complaints I've ever had. Three.So after several years of lengthy deliberation, I have concluded aeroplane is indeed the correct usage.it has also been said we go further than most in lowercasing words. this is because we are quite trendy and the designers say it looks better on the page. The only capitals that are therefore allowed are either those that aPPear for no good reason in the middle of words or when we want to deliberately annoy EE Cummings. By the way, much against my better judgment, I've been dragged screaming and kicking into the 20th century and forced to allow split infinitives in exceptional circumstances.Talking of which, new technology gives me a real headache.No sooner have I worked out whether or not to hyphen email – most definitely not! –than some Californian invents some newfangled thingy and I lose hours of sleep deciding whether a Blackberry is a BlackBerry. Someone has to worry about these things.I've lost count of the number of times we fail to differentiate between goths and Goths. Am I the only one to spot that one of them has a capital letter? But as long as our writers continue to get it wrong, I will continue to point out the error of their ways.Because I'm that type of person and I haven't got much else to do. I also intend to make sure we address Nick Clegg's wife correctly. Her name is Miriam González Durántez. Do not call her Miriam Clegg or Mrs Clegg. Though Mrs C is obviously fine.These are just a few of the excitements you will find in the new edition of Guardian Style.I will leave you to discover the rest for yourself. But before I do, I'm afraid I must introduce one sour note. Swearing has become commonplace in everyday conversation and Guardian writers have proved more foul-mouthed than most. Much to my dismay, we printed 705 "fucks" last year – 704 of them in the newspaper's digested read. For that my sincere apologies.John Crace's digested read appears regularly in G2LanguageJohn Craceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |