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WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT? SEM of a kidney stone


www.mddus.com OUT THERE


BUMP OR SHAKE? A US surgeon is urging colleagues to fist bump as a more hygienic alternative to a handshake. Dr Tom McClellan found more bacteria was transmitted with a shake because more than three times as much skin surface is exposed, and for longer, compared to knuckle pounding.


SPIDER SEWING Medieval surgeons used spider webs to close wounds, thanks partly to its believed healing properties. Spider silks are also, weight-for-weight, six times stronger than steel. Research into arachnid spinning techniques is now inspiring pioneering new bio- compatible, biodegradable materials for use in surgery.


YE OLDE REMEDIES Stuffing bread in your ears eases earache while drinking potions of burnt birds and castor oil can tackle sickness. These bizarre remedies are contained in a recently discovered book from 1673 by Royal physician William Sermon.


OFFICE SUPPLIES Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital have used a 3D printer and sheep cartilage to create an artificial ear that they then mould on a flexible wire frame. It’s claimed realistic looking ears could eventually be produced for individual patients on a “rapid timescale”.


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Pick: DVD - Side Effects WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT?


Stumped? The answer is at the bottom of the page


Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones; 2013


Ignore the blood-smeared floor in the opening sequence of this film and you might just think you’re in for an earnest indictment of big pharma – greed and disregard for individual patient welfare. A suicidal young woman (Mara) is recruited onto a trial for a new antidepressant


with the lure of free meds. An unexpected side effect leads to tragedy and some uncomfort- able questions for her psychia- trist (Law).


Here though the film veers into unexpected territory and the twists and turns never stop. In Side Effects Soderbergh offers a watchable thriller more Hitchcock than Goldacre but not without some interesting things to say about a society increas-


ingly dependent on Prozac and the like, generating billions in profits for drug companies.


Law is excellent as the at-first remorseful clinician who in trying to clear his name discovers things are not as they seem – and Mara (unrecognis- able from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is even more credible as the assumed victim in the affair. Turn off the phone and make the popcorn.


Book Review: Dirty Work Jonathan Cape; £14.99 hardback


Review by Joanne Curran, associate editor of publications, MDDUS


THERE are few taboos left in modern medicine, or in society generally, but this bold new book from surgeon Gabriel Weston confronts one head-on. Dirty Work plays out over four


weeks in the life of gynaecologist Nancy, an “abortion provider” whose inability to complete a procedure leaves her patient in intensive care and her facing an investigatory panel of the General Medical Council.


As she is called to explain her actions, Nancy is forced to consider the brutality of the dirty work she must perform, as a doctor whose purpose is to end lives as much as save them. Each of the four chapters


covers one week in Nancy’s life as she struggles to answer her investigators’ questions. This is interspersed with flashbacks to her past, describing the events and experiences that have made her the person she is now. What kind of person, or indeed


doctor, is Nancy and is she guilty of some kind of wrongdoing? These questions are carefully and skilfully explored by Weston whose beautifully descriptive writing is both harsh and poignant. Weston has talked of her


interest in exploring the idea of women’s silence in this novel, of how they are often unable to describe their experiences as freely and brutally as men do.


It is partly Nancy’s


struggle to find her voice, to tell her story, that results in her potentially fatal surgical error. She remains virtually mute throughout the initial GMC interviews, afterwards explaining to her sister: “I had so much that I wanted to say. But I just... I just didn’t say it. Or I didn’t say it right. I didn’t say enough of it right.” A sentiment that any doctor who has ever been called to justify


their professional behaviour will no doubt understand. The novel follows


Weston’s award- winning first book Direct Red which laid bare her experiences as a trainee surgeon and offered a fascinating insight into the closed world of surgery.


Dirty Work is a brave and


complex work that examines the conflict between a doctor’s belief in the right to abortion and the difficult reality of carrying out such procedures. It is a compelling read that never flinches from some of the less palatable issues that doctors must face.


PHOTO: THE KOBAL COLLECTION


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