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Time and Life Management for Medical Students and Residents

Time and life management is not normally a skill we are taught growing up. As we grow from being a child to an adult, it is inevitable that we become independent managers of our time and schedule. Most who end...

CSOM in Mwanza, Tanzania

This is a prospective, cross-sectional study involving 301 patients consisting of farmers, students and employed professionals attending an ENT clinic in Mwanza, Tanzania. Of the 301 patients, 13 were HIV positive; 37.9% had some degree of conductive / sensorineural /...

Small but significant

These authors try to circumnavigate the conundrum of what is influenced by what. For something so small, the impact of the Stria Vascularis cannot be understated. The difficulty in reviewing the influence of loop diuretics or aminoglycosides on the Stria...

Prevention better than cure?

This systematic review looks at methods of ‘barrier protection’ or ‘barrier-enforcing’ to minimise allergic rhinitis symptoms, using 15 RCTs. Whilst the authors admit that patient numbers were small in a number of these studies, generally it seems that barrier techniques...

Bad splits

This is a meta-analysis of reported risk factors of a ‘bad split’ in a sagittal split mandibular osteotomy. They identified 30 observational articles and therefore acknowledged it is based on low quality studies. It is compounded by the definition of...

Medicine and Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney grew up in the 1940s. Infectious diseases – diphtheria, poliomyelitis, mumps, measles and rubella – were rife. Stepping Stones recalled talk among older neighbours of ‘a-waiting on’ when they were close to death. Aunts and uncles succumbed to...

Laryngeal Physiology for the Surgeon and Clinician – Second Edition

This second edition is a short (110 pages), succinct and concise book. I don’t usually like reading physiology textbooks, but I found this one very interesting. It is written in a manner which is easy to read and digest. It’s...

Treatment options for vestibular neuritis: systematic review and meta-analysis

Vestibular neuritis (VN) is the third most common cause of peripheral vertigo. VN has been postulated to have viral aetiology and historically it was treated with steroids, until 2011 when a Cochrane review demonstrated lack of robust evidence behind this...

Training people with Parkinson’s disease and their partners to have better conversations

Parkinson’s disease is predominantly considered a motor disorder, impacting speech, particularly voice volume, amongst other physical functions. Language and cognitive difficulties, such as difficulties in word finding and social pragmatics are also a key feature of Parkinson’s disease. Given the...

Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty – is it time to start doing it in children?

Given the potential applications for balloon Eustachian tuboplasty (BET) in children, its uptake in most centres has been slow. The reasons for this are multifactorial. There are technical issues – the feasibility of obtaining the correct size balloon and manoeuvring...

Immunosuppresants and ototoxicity

There is a wide range of immunosuppressant drugs ranging from calcineurin inhibitors (e.g. cyclosporine), anti-folic agents (e.g. methotrexate) to anti-TNF and monoclonal antibodies, many of which could be ototoxic. The authors performed a systematic review assessing ototoxicity secondary to immunosuppressant...