Intended for healthcare professionals

Minerva

Minerva

BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7398.1096 (Published 15 May 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:1096

Minerva was amused to read that a team of administrators from the Health and Safety Executive planned to join about 70 others in a sponsored abseil down the side of the Tate Modern art gallery in London. They're doing it to raise awareness of occupational asthma. Minerva has sympathy for those who suffer from asthma, but wonders whether fundraisers couldn't do something less panic inducing or dangerous.


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A 73 year old woman with speech and learning difficulties presented with healing full thickness burns on the back of her left thigh. Three weeks earlier she had injured her left thigh at an airport just before boarding a transatlantic flight. An ice pack was applied over the injured part during the flight, resulting in a full thickness burn. The frostbite injury was treated conservatively with dressings and eventually healed. Minor musculoskeletal injuries are often treated with elevation and ice packs. This case highlights the consequence of unsupervised application of an ice pack.

Viswanathan Narayanan, specialist registrar, Yvonne Wilson, consultant, department of plastic surgery, Selly Oak Hospital, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Birmingham B29 6JD

US doctors have designed a new clinical trial that should reduce the size of the placebo effect …

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