Profession

News • Medical professionals after the referendum

How Brexit transformed the UK health care workforce

Decreased health care worker migration, worsening physician shortages: Brexit – the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union (EU) – has profoundly impacted the English healthcare…

Article • Exploring unspoken systems

The hidden culture of competition in medicine: A system-level challenge

Medicine has long been regarded as a profession rooted in collaboration. From multidisciplinary teams to shared clinical decision-making, the system depends on cooperation to function effectively.…

News • Shared decision-making

Designing hospital spaces: who should have a say?

Who should contribute to decisions about health care space design? A new publication discusses the benefits of professional diversity in hospital design working groups.

Article • Professional perspectives

Theranostics: A career opportunity for Nuclear Medicine Technologists

What is an advanced clinical practitioner (ACP) and why should nuclear medicine technologists strive to become one? At the 2024 annual meeting of the SNMMI in Toronto, ACP Luisa Roldão Pereira…

News • Stress and cost of finding suitable childcare

Why doctors quit: Survey identifies critical reasons

A new BMJ survey shows many doctor parents find it almost impossible to fit their work in with available childcare options. For some, childcare costs are more than they earn.

News • Waning workforce

Health worker shortages strongly linked to excess deaths

Shortages of health workers such as doctors, nurses and midwifery staff are strongly associated with higher death rates, finds a new analysis published by The BMJ.

News • The "Rx" factor

GP burnout linked to higher opioid and antibiotic prescribing

When in doubt, write a prescription? New research links burnout in GPs to higher antibiotic and strong opioid prescribing, especially in more deprived areas of the North of England.

News • National research programme

Switzerland develops novel approaches to healthcare

Better coordination beyond purely medical aspects: the Swiss national research programme “Smarter Health Care” shows how resources in the health sector can be used more efficiently.

News • Suggestion for double reading practice

Solving the radiologist shortage with trained radiographers

When double reading screening mammograms, radiographers trained for the task perform as well as radiologists in key areas, according to a new publication.

News • Covid_19

France gets tough on unvaccinated health workers

Thousands of unvaccinated French health workers face suspension without pay under a new COVID-19 law that punishes people in care professions who refuse to get immunised against the virus.

News • Pandemic problems

Covid-19: risk increased sevenfold for healthcare workers

Healthcare workers are 7 times as likely to have severe Covid-19 infection as those with other types of ‘non-essential’ jobs, finds research focusing on the first UK-wide lockdown. And those with jobs in the social care and transport sectors are twice as likely to do so, emphasising the need to ensure that essential (key) workers are adequately protected against the infection, say the…

News • UK experts raise concerns

COVID-19 antibody tests: Not a game-changer after all?

A group of senior clinical academics and physicians are concerned about the rapid roll out of COVID-19 antibody testing in England and are publicly questioning how good the tests are - or even what they mean. In a letter to The BMJ, they argue that there is currently no valid clinical reason for large scale testing, test performance has not yet been adequately assessed, and testing risks…

Article • Workforce challenges

Pathologists will hold a pivotal role

Amid ever-growing demand for services, significant challenges face the pathology workforce in the years ahead but – there are also good opportunities. With advances in technology and the advent of artificial intelligence as a decision-making support tool, Professor Jo Martin, President Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) in the UK, believes there remain opportunities for pathology to play a…

Article • Is the problem also the solution?

Why digitisation pushes (and prevents) physician burnout

Deployment of electronic health records (EHR) are increasingly cited as a factor in physician burnout. However, a senior figure with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) – which supports the transformation of health through information and technology – believes defined use of data and information can help off-set the impact of burnout among health professionals.…

News • Cancer care

Oncology Nursing: Worldwide knowledge differs greatly

Nurses’ knowledge of cancer and screening processes varies significantly across the globe – potentially resulting in unnecessary deaths where knowledge falls short – new research reports. It is therefore vitally important to assess varying levels of knowledge in nurses across the world, a new study led by researchers from the University of Surrey reports.

News • Addiction

Ten percent of hospital inpatients are alcohol dependent

A review of evidence by researchers at King’s College London has found high levels of alcohol dependence among hospital inpatients. The researchers estimate one in five patients in the UK hospital system uses alcohol harmfully, and one in ten is alcohol dependent. Currently little is being done to screen routinely for alcohol dependence in hospitals, and services for patients with alcohol…

News • TPA report

Automation in health care: reduce costs, increase productivity

The Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will be launching a new report by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) on introducing more automation in the NHS. As families and businesses face a 50 year high tax burden, the government has a duty to provide good value for money. The NHS is an essential service which needs to see further improvement and less money wasted.…

Article • Under pressure

Physician burnout cases are rising

Longer hours, more demanding working practices, complex cases and increased administration are taking their toll on physicians as growing numbers, across a range of specialties, report signs of burnout. All this despite technological advances such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to aid diagnosis, read and interpret images, improve workflow and enhance decision-making.

Article • Digitising care

Every nurse is an e-nurse

Following a report from software firm Nuance Communications that suggests technology firms should consider shadowing nurses to fully understand their workflows and inform the creation of solutions that work for them, nurses’ views on technology and data are to be consulted in a new Royal College of Nursing initiative alongside NHS Digital’s chief nurse Anne Cooper.

News • Politics

EIBIR launches its Strategic Research Agenda for Biomedical Imaging

The European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR) has published its Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Biomedical Imaging. The agenda identifies current challenges and needs in healthcare, illustrating how biomedical imaging and derived data can help to address these challenges, in order to stimulate dedicated research funding efforts and mechanisms.

News • Profession in crisis

Burn-out and heavy drinking in surgeons: Is there a way out?

Burn-out, depression, heavy drinking: Surgeon's seem to be in deep trouble, according to an editorial published in the Journal of ISAKOS (JISAKOS). It is high time for the profession to fix this problem itself before the government steps in, urges leading surgeon Professor Niek van Dijk of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, citing various published studies - and offers solutions on how to…

Article • The impact of AI

Radiology and radiologists: a painful divorce

AI-based applications will replace radiologists in some areas, the physicist Bram van Ginneken predicts. ‘The profession of radiologist will change profoundly,’ predicts Gram van Ginneken, Professor of Medical Image Analysis at Radboud University Medical Centre. The cause is automatic image analysis by computers (first published in a paper in 1963) and deep learning.

Article • Profession

Swiss radiographers face many challenges

The radiographer in Switzerland faces many issues, from having the right education to positioning themselves both professionally and legally in the healthcare continuum. Before a large audience at ECR 2018, Yves Jaermann, head of the radiographers service Riviera-Chablais Hospital in Vaud Valay, reviewed the situation in his country. The profession of radiographer was born in 1896, when the first…

Interview • Digital pioneering

eHealth in Nordic countries

For the quality of medical care, Europe is increasingly relying on digitization and telemedicine. The Nordic countries are considered pioneers in the digitization of the health care system. European Hospital spoke with Professor Arild Faxvaag, Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Trondheim, Norway, about his presentation “Nordic…

Interview • Challenging, but rewarding

Emergency radiology advances – despite shortages and low recognition

Emergency radiology is no longer a babbling field; professionalisation will bring more recognition to this young subspecialty, according to Elizabeth Dick, a London-based consultant, who will coordinate part of the new European Diploma in Emergency Radiology (EDER), the European Society of Radiology’s new tool. We interviewed the radiologist, who spoke of her daily practice and why she loves…

21 show more articles