1. GMC launched appeals against its own tribunal service 23 times in less than a year. As a result, seven doctors have been struck off the medical register against the advice of the GMC’s own Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (MPTS), including Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba. Based on the GMCs own previous research it is probable that a disproportionate number were doctors from ethnic minorities. [ black and minority ethnic doctors] Dr Kailash Chand
2. Residents with limited work hours report more satisfaction with their training and work–life balance than those with flexible hours and longer shifts [iCOMPARE trial in NEJM). Limiting residents work hours however does not appear to affect educational outcomes.
3. A population-based cohort study of 185,000 Swedish residents aged 75 years or older who initiated antidepressant treatment late in life, showed that switching to another antidepressant more than doubled the risk for suicide or suicide attempts
4. Gout patients who ate cherries during a 2 day period were 35% less likely to experience symptoms than patients who did not eat [ 2013 journal arthritis and Rheumatology]. Anthocyanins, anti-inflammatory pigment gives cherries red color & explains anti gout benefits.
5. A study from Johns Hopkins University found taking a 500 mg vitamin C daily for two months significantly lowered a patient’s uric acid levels
6. A doctor subscribing 3-4 journals used to read titles of each monthly issue, read abstracts & interesting articles. Now most get e journals. Some click on the table of contents but spend < 30 seconds perusing the titles. Rarely click on an actual manuscript.
7. The protests by the students of Shri Guru Ram Rai (SGRR) Institute of Medical and Health Sciences entered the third day on March 29. The students have been protesting day and night against what could be called an absurd fee hike of almost 400%.
8. A Swedish nurse was suspended for posting on Facebook pictures of a brain surgery in which she was participating (Salter 2008).
9. US Johnson County College expelled 4 nursing students for posting on Facebook pictures of themselves posing with human placenta, Gibson 2011
10. A Mexican anaesthesiologist was fired from a hospital in 2012 for publishing on her Facebook account pictures that depicted a child being immobilized prior to an operation, the amputated legs of an elderly woman, and various surgery pictures where the patients’ faces were visible (Vivas 2012)."
11. Ranjan Pai built Manipal Education and Medical Group. Now after the Fortis-Manipal deal, his firm is the largest hospital chain in the country.
12. The value of the entity resulting from the merger of Fortis Healthcare and Manipal Hospital Enterprises will be Rs 15,000 crore.
13. Father of a dengue patient, who died during the course of treatment, has been returned Rs 16 lakh by Medanta following intervention by J P Nadda. He took the FIR back.
14. Fortis is valued at Rs95-97 per share, or about Rs5,000 crore. Manipal Hospital at Rs6,000 crore though Fortis Healthcare has more than twice the number of hospitals and operational beds than Manipal.
15. Michigan Medicine has received a gift benefiting the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, and its a big one: A $150 million commitment from longtime donors Richard and Susan Rogel.
16. Selfie medicine app: The patient opens the app and takes a video of swallowing the pills. The video then goes to central monitoring unit. It can monitor TB or hepatitis C patients.
17. Gurugram: A case of negligence, 304, has been filed by the police against two doctors of Fortis hospital after a medical board inquiry found them prima facie responsible for "delay in proper treatment" of a 51-year-old woman who died of cardiac arrest last year.

Doctors did not administer anti-platelet treatment as per protocol to the patient. TOI

18. TOI: KOLKATA: The West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) on Thursday suspended the practising licences of two Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals doctors, charging them with medical negligence causing the death of 30-year-old accident victim Sanjay Roy last February. The council has also charged the hospital with “inhuman behaviour”.

19. The Maharashtra government started one-year Certificate Course of Modern Pharmacology (CCMP) in 2016. While one batch of over 650 doctors has cleared the course, second batch is awaiting results and the third one is under training.

20. Current guidelines recommend that routine cervical cancer screening should end at age 65 years, but new research suggests that there may be an advantage to screening past that cutoff point [Society of Gynecologic Oncology] Among women diagnosed with cervical cancer, 1 in 5 are aged 65 years or older. Conversely, only 1 in 20 are aged 20 to 29 years.

21. Chronic fatigue syndrome is linked with low T3 levels & normal TSH [ March 20 in Frontiers in Endocrinology]

22. TOI: KOCHI: Kerala has failed to submit its views on National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill (2017) to the parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare on time.

23. Deccan Chronicle: Kochi: MCI that questioned the Kerala Professional Colleges Ordinance, 2017 in the Supreme Court has told the apex court that the state government was violating the Article 14 of the Constitution by the promulgation of the ordinance. [*Whether it is Constitutionally permissible for the state government to pass an ordinance which would have the effect of nullifying the orders of the High Court and the Supreme Court?]