It is time for another change

Is it time for Medi-change?

COPD: it is time to change!

COPD is a common cause of disability, morbidity and mortality worldwide and a major global health problem with enormous direct and indirect health care costs. Different reasons can be advanced to explain it, but among them the possibility that the recommended diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to COPD were less effective than they could be, should be also considered. The pharmacological base...

The future NHS: time for another change?

How I agree with Roger Jones’ insightful editorial.1 The NHS has experienced an artificial (but nonetheless increasing) divide between primary and secondary care for nearly a quarter of a century now. A parlance has evolved which incorporates concepts such as ‘spend’ ‘provider’ and ‘activity’. It is regrettable that a whole generation of young medical and nursing staff don’t know any different....

Polio vaccine: is it time for a change?

It is hoped, and widely expected, that early in the next century the wild-type polio virus will be declared extinct as a result of an eradication programme started in 1988 by the World Health Assembly using live attenuated trivalent oral (Sabin) polio vaccine (OPV). This potential achievement is reminiscent of the successful eradication of smallpox in 1977, but there are important diVerences. M...

Cortical plasticity: Is it time for a change?

Classical studies of plasticity in the visual cortex have been interpreted in terms of heterosynaptic competition between inputs. But an alternative type of 'homosynaptic' plasticity can explain many recent observations and has recently received experimental support. Perhaps both types of plasticity are important.