Sonntag, 29. Januar 2012

Wenn der Ömmes mit seiner Kaline...

...Günna tut besuchen...
"Günna allein zu Hause" im Olpketaltheater - soviel gelacht haben wir schon lange nicht mehr!
Und noch ein anderes Highlight am nächsten Tag: auf zur Süd...
Strahlend blauer Himmel, Frühstück im ehemaligen Kasino der britischen Streitkräfte, bummeln gehen auf dem Markt, Mayersche Buchhandlung und dann heißt es, gut eingepackt zum Stadion.
Westfälischer Grillschinken mit Kraut schmeckt wie immer lecker, den heißen Kakao heben wir uns für später auf...
Eine Stunde vor Spielbeginn sind wir im Block 14, schon dichtes Gedränge. Bei Spielbeginn stehen wir dann wie die Heringe zusammen...Eine faire Geste - die Hoffenheimer Spieler entschuldigen sich beim BVB!
Und das Spiel nimmt Fahrt auf - es macht richtig Spaß zuzusehen! Bei Halbzeit hätte es schon 4 : 0 stehen können. Am Ende sagt meine Kaline: So ein schönes Spiel habe ich hier noch nie gesehen!
Ja, demnächst wieder in diesem Stadion! Mehr


Samstag, 21. Januar 2012

Fußball muß bezahlbar sein - Kein Zwanni für nen Steher...

Diese Aktion wird kurzfristig anlässlich der Preisgestaltung des Derbys am 19.09. durch die Gelbe Wand ins Leben gerufen. Eine Erhöhung von über 50 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahr lässt die Preise für einen Stehplatz auf 20 Euro und für Sitzplätze im Schnitt auf etwa 50 Euro steigen. Eine Preispolitik, unter der wohlgemerkt nicht nur die Gästefans zu leiden haben. Auch das Heimpublikum muss diesen Topspielzuschlag auf Tageskarten mittragen. Eine Stehplatzkarte im Derby kostete so beispielsweise im Vorjahr noch 13 Euro (ohne Vorverkaufsgebühr), das ergibt eine Steigerung von rund 54 Prozent. Mehr

Nachwuchshandel

Der Transfermarkt bewegt in diesen Tagen wieder einmal die Fußball-Republik. Diesmal sind es aber nicht die aberwitzigen Millionen-Ablösesummen und -Gehälter, mit denen die Topklubs in Deutschland und Europa um Stars wie Messi, Ronaldo oder Schweinsteiger buhlen. An diese Absurditäten hat sich das Publikum gewöhnt. Das Thema des Tages sind zwei Kinder an der Schwelle zur Jugendlichkeit, die ihre Berliner und Hamburger Heimat verlassen, um nun in Hoffenheim (Nico Franke) und Wolfsburg (Alexander Laukart) ihrem Traum von der Bundesliga einen Schritt näher zu kommen. Mehr

Mittwoch, 11. Januar 2012

Bedside manner


Although I am used to medical studentssitting in on my clinics, I was surprised recently by how many notes one particular student was taking. I found it hard to believe that the amount of knowledge dripping off my lips should have filled so many A4 sheets of paper. Mehr

Dienstag, 10. Januar 2012

What is health?


The current WHO definition of health, formulated in 1948, describes health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”1 At that time this formulation was groundbreaking because of its breadth and ambition. It overcame the negative definition of health as absence of disease and included the physical, mental, and social domains. Although the definition has been criticised over the past 60 years, it has never been adapted. Criticism is now intensifying, 2-5 and as populations age and the pattern of illnesses changes the definition may even be counterproductive. The paper summarises the limitations of the WHO definition and describes the proposals for making it more useful that were developed at a conference of international health experts held in the Netherlands. 6 Mehr

Montag, 9. Januar 2012

The power of positive thinking


The campaign for sainthood for Mother Mary MacKillop began in 1927. In the late 1800s, the Australian nun was a diligent campaigner for educating the poor and the cofounder of a new religious order, but the prayers of two cancer survivors after her death are what ensured Mary’s canonisation later this year. In 2009, Mother Mary was credited with her second miracle after a woman in New South Wales was pronounced clear of inoperable lung cancer and a secondary brain tumour. The woman had no standard treatment but wore a relic of Mary’s clothing and prayed to her daily. The first miracle attributed to Mother Mary was the similar healing of a woman with leukaemia. Mehr

Sonntag, 8. Januar 2012

Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall

"Der FC Bayern wird immer besser als Dortmund sein."
Bastian Schweinsteiger nach dem Reus-Transfer des BVB

FAS 8. Januar 2012 Nr 1 Seite 14

Freitag, 6. Januar 2012

Research misconduct is widespread and harms patients

Fiona Godlee, editor, BMJ
fgodlee@bmj.com
The best writing transforms the writer as well as the reader. I can’t claim transformation for you when you read the editorial on research misconduct in the UK (doi:10.1136/bmj.d8357), but I do claim it for me. Writing it with Elizabeth Wager changed my own views, largely thanks to conversations with those we sent it to for comment.
The editorial prefaces a joint BMJ/COPE meeting on 12 January on research misconduct in the UK. As Aniket Tavare makes clear, the UK is lagging behind other developed countries in still having no proper system for tackling misconduct (doi:10.1136/bmj.d8212). Discussions and initiatives have focused on research fraud, defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. These things are considered rare in the UK, which is how I and others have tended to explain this country’s resistance to action. But email conversations over the past few days with Peter Wilmshurst and Iain Chalmers, both of whom will speak at the meeting, brought home to me that this narrow definition doesn’t do justice to the breadth and depth of behaviours that damage the integrity of science. I got the same important message from talking last week with Aubrey Blumsohn, the researcher who blew the whistle on misconduct at Sheffield University (BMJ 2009;339:b5293).
Both Blumsohn and Wilmshurst have, in different ways, sacrificed their careers to draw attention to research misconduct. Chalmers has spent his career fighting for full publication of clinical trial results. All three believe that misconduct is widespread and highly damaging to patients.
Wilmshurst says the reason that misconduct is not dealt with properly in the UK is not because it’s uncommon, but because it is common and people don’t see it as serious. "They see lots of people doing it and not being punished," he says. He wants a sea change in public and professional opinion, as has happened with MPs’ expenses and phone hacking. "We need to make sure that people know that research fraud harms patients and that it goes beyond fabrication and falsification."
Blumsohn says people don’t know who to go to if they have concerns about a colleague’s behaviour. They may be advised or bullied to keep quiet. He wants a move away from limited definitions of fraud and closed decisions on whether it took place or not, to an open discussion of behaviours that asks: "should we tolerate this type of conduct? Is it in the best interests of science and patients?"
Chalmers says that reporting bias and suppression of data result in people suffering and dying, which is rarely the case with narrowly defined fraud. The editorial now reflects this view, and so too does this whole issue of the BMJ. A call for papers last year resulted in a wonderful crop of research into the extent, causes, and consequences of unpublished evidence from clinical trials. So by happy coincidence, we have married research misconduct with missing data, and we hope the union is fruitful. As Richard Lehman and Elizabeth Loder conclude in their overarching editorial (doi:10.1136/bmj.d8158), "concealment of data should be regarded as the serious ethical breach that it is, and clinical researchers who fail to disclose data should be subject to disciplinary action by professional organisations."
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e14