PHOTO: THE KOBAL COLLECTION


PHOTO: NIBSC/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY


WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT? HIV viruses (red) on a blood cell


www.mddus.com OUT THERE


LIFTS LIKE LOOS Hospital lift buttons harbour more bacteria than toilets. Toronto physicians found the prevalence of bacterial colonisation on lift buttons was 61 per cent compared to just 43 per cent in and around toilet surfaces. They recommend touchless sensors or larger buttons that can be elbow-activated.


FRIEND OR FOE Young doctors who are friendly with patients struggle to be truthful with them, according to a Lancet Oncology study. Blurring personal and professional lines can also make patients less honest about side eff ects. Hugging, Facebook friending and using fi rst names are not recommended.


BLOOD GRAB A plant-based polymer gel developed in New York can stop bleeding within seconds by “grabbing” onto blood and “snapping it back together to seal the wound.” It’s hoped VetiGel could be used on the battlefi eld and in medical emergencies and may eventually replace plasters and bandages.


GOOGLE SAVED ME Who needs doctors when we have internet search engines? Recent research by Medical Accident Group claims 21 per cent of patients trusted information found via Google search results above their GP, while 27 per cent said they relied “entirely on Google for a diagnosis”. Of those who self-diagnosed, 58 per cent got it wrong and had exaggerated their illness.


Pick: DVD - Contagion


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FY 15i •


WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT? Stumped? The answer is at the bottom of the page


I ONCE read that at the London press showing of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion reviewers were handed out free pocket bottles of anti-bacterial handwash – an Ab Fab touch of absurdist marketing if ever there was. This gut-wrenching thriller explores the


Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet; 2011


all-too-real possibility of a deadly H1N1-type viral outbreak exploding into global pandemic. Soderbergh directs an ensemble cast in multiple stories played out against an epic medical disaster. Businesswoman Beth Emhoff (Paltrow)


returns from a Hong Kong business trip suff ering from fl u and just days later both she


and her young son are dead – and her husband Mitch (Damon) is in quarantine though seemingly immune. Infection spreads and scientists from various agencies scramble to investigate the source in order to develop an eff ective vaccine – but not before the contagion has encircled the globe leading to mass quarantine and general panic. A rash of zombie fi lms and TV series have


in recent years eff ectively exploited similar fears - loss of control, societal breakdown, brutal dehumanisation - but Contagion makes for altogether more uncomfortable viewing in its disturbing plausibility.


Book Review: Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery By Henry Marsh


W&N: £6.29 paperback, 2014


Review by Jim Killgore, publications editor, MDDUS


THIS fascinating book by neurosurgeon Henry Marsh – familiar to many from the documentaries Your Life in Their Hands and The English Surgeon – is a memoir of sorts, though woven through a series of fascinating vignettes involving some of the patients he has operated on over the years. Marsh writes with refreshing honesty and


humility yet no false modesty. He is confi dent of his unique skill yet also painfully aware of the limitations of his role – which he calls more craft than art.


“Much of what happens in hospitals is a


matter of luck, both good and bad; success and failure are often out of the doctor’s control,” he writes. “Knowing when not to operate is just as important as knowing how to operate, and is a more diffi cult skill to acquire.” Many of the surgical


challenges described in this book ultimately come down to plumbing, though at the most intricate extremes – removing tumours or clipping off aneurysms without compromising the rich blood supply to the brain where even minute haemorrhages can result in catastrophic blood loss. All done with fi ne precision using a binocular operating microscope: “I am deeply in love with the one I use, just as any good craftsman is with his tools,” he says. The anatomy Marsh describes looking down


his microscope is almost otherworldly. “I often have to cut into the brain and it is something I


hate doing. With a pair of diathermy forceps I coagulate the beautiful and intricate blood vessels that lie on the brain’s shining surface. I cut into it with a small scalpel and make a hole through which I push with a fi ne sucker… The idea that my sucker is moving through thought itself, through emotion and reason, that memories, dreams and refl ections should consist of jelly, is simply too strange to understand.” Surgical errors in such procedures


are more often than not attended with devastating circumstances for the patient and Marsh provides frank insight on how neurosurgeons deal with this responsibility. “You can’t stay pleased with


yourself for long in neurosurgery,”


says one colleague. “There’s always another disaster waiting round the corner.” This book off ers a rare view of what life is


like in the premiere league of surgery – but it is also an artful and engrossing read.


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