Month: February 2017

MSc Patient Safety

We know that education and training are immensely important in ensuring patient safety. We also know that its benefits are not just direct (i.e. the attainment of knowledge and skills), but also include more nuanced gains (i.e. better communication skills, better teamwork, time for reflection which can contribute to overall personal growth). At Imperial College London, we’ve worked in patient safety for a long time (2002!) We’ve also worked in education and training for a long time. In fact, we’ve worked at the intersect of education/training and patient safety since 2007, with our MSc programme Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

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Forgotten Scientists

by Lindsay H. Dewa

“Certain people – men, of course – discouraged me, saying [science] was not a good career for women. That pushed me even more to persevere […] I was from the generation of 1968. It was a period of activism and women were demanding their rights.”
 Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Virologist,
Nobel Prize Winner for Physiology or Medicine 2008

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is an inspiration to all women in science, determined to succeed despite discouragement and achieved the greatest honour in Science: a Nobel Prize. But, unfortunately, her bad experience in her earlier days as a scientist is still common amongst women today.

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Diagnosing Cancer

by Olga Kostopoulou

Cancer causes death to millions of people worldwide. Early detection of cancer in primary care can enhance patients’ chances of survival. However, detecting cancer early is no simple task. The symptoms can be vague and non-specific, and can be easily attributed to pre-existing or other, more common conditions. Attributing symptoms of bowel or ovarian cancer, such as abdominal distention and pain, to Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a frequent example. With funding from Cancer Research UK, we have been researching early cancer diagnosis for the last 5 years. When I started work in this area, I had assumed that cancer is always at the back of a GP’s mind. I found out that this was not necessarily the case. (more…)