All posts tagged: Doctors

Doctor accused of causing patient’s death by cutting wrong arteries restricted from surgery for 18 months

Doctor accused of causing patient’s death by cutting wrong arteries restricted from surgery for 18 months

Published by Sam Flores

SINGAPORE: A doctor who was charged in March with causing the death of a patient by severing the wrong arteries during surgery has been restricted from performing most types of surgery for 18 months. The Singapore Medical Council (SMC) had sought the restrictions, saying the doctor likely had a fundamental misunderstanding and/or misapprehension of the human anatomy and that this may not have been a one-off error. This measure was imposed on Dr Fong Yan Kit by the Singapore Medical Council Interim Orders Committee in order to protect the public and preserve the public interest, according to a decision published on Tuesday (Aug 25). Dr Fong, a 54-year-old Singaporean, faces a charge of causing the death of a 63-year-old woman by a negligent act during kidney surgery. He allegedly severed the wrong arteries during a keyhole surgery in April 2022 at Raffles Hospital and concluded the surgery without checking that the correct vessels had been severed. As a result, the patient’s intra-abdominal organs suffered infarction, or tissue death due to inadequate blood supply. She died …

Strictly star Graeme Hall previously quit dancing after doctors found ‘hole in his heart’

Strictly star Graeme Hall previously quit dancing after doctors found ‘hole in his heart’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter A heart condition forced Graeme Hall to put his dancing shoes away – but, seven years on, the TV star is preparing to return to the dancefloor as a Strictly Come Dancing contestant. The 59-year-old, who is best known as the dog trainer on Channel 5’s Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, suffered a stroke in 2019 after which doctors discovered a hole in his heart. Hall underwent an operation to fix the hole, but the diagnosis left him fearing that his dancing days were over. While he is not a fully trained dancer, Hall had fallen in love with the sport after competing in several small competitions. “I’d done a local competition called Strictly Northampton in 2012 and loved it so much that I carried it on as a hobby,” he told The Sun. Hall went on to compete in regional events …

Doctor Who director recalls “raw” filming of Rose and the Doctor’s iconic farewell

Doctor Who director recalls “raw” filming of Rose and the Doctor’s iconic farewell

Published by Daniella Wilson

Doctor Who director Graeme Harper has reflected on filming one of the show’s most memorable scenes – Rose Tyler and the Doctor’s heartbreaking farewell in 2006 episode Doomsday. Harper, who helmed the season 2 finale, was speaking at BFI Southbank’s Doctor Who: 20 Years On – The Tenth Doctor event following a screening of the episode, which famously saw Rose (Billie Piper) trapped in a parallel universe and separated from David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor. The episode ends with the Doctor managing to project an image of himself onto Bad Wolf Bay in Norway, giving Rose the chance to say goodbye – and to finally tell him that she loves him. Looking back on shooting the emotional sequence, Harper explained that Tennant and Piper were actually filming the climactic scenes surprisingly early in their time working together. “Billie and David actually still had another five months’ worth of work to do on other episodes,” he explained, with episode The Satan Pit actually marking their final scene shot together. Want to see this content? This page contains …

Courtney Love Reveals Doctors Told Her She Was Going to Die

Courtney Love Reveals Doctors Told Her She Was Going to Die

Published by Daniella Wilson

Courtney Love is opening up about a serious health crisis she faced after moving to England in 2019, revealing that doctors told her she “was going to die.” On Friday, Love took to Instagram to address questions about her long-awaited solo album. “A lot of you are asking where my record is at. It’s done. It’s kind of been done,” she said. “It’s a really good record. I put a lot into it.” The former Hole frontwoman then revealed that she faced a frightening health battle after moving from Los Angeles to London seven years ago. “When I went there, my body just exploded. It just exploded. And I was in hospitals a lot. I almost died,” Love said. “I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds. And they told me I was going to die. I didn’t believe them.” Love explained that her refusal to believe the doctors was connected to a childhood experience. “When I was a kid — I think this record is about this — I used to, like, …

Doctors share what air conditioning really does to your body and health

Doctors share what air conditioning really does to your body and health

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore This summer has seen a relentless succession of heatwaves, with precious little relief in between. As temperatures remain stubbornly high, the temptation to crank up the air conditioning is undeniable. Yet, while air conditioning offers an effective escape from the heat, it can also bring some unexpected side effects. General practitioners have now revealed five surprising ways air conditioning can affect your body, sharing their top tips for reducing these annoying potential impacts. 1) Skin Prolonged exposure to air-conditioned environments can have a noticeable drying effect on your skin. “Air conditioning tends to remove humidity from the air, which makes us feel cooler, but it can increase the water loss from your skin,” explains Dr Opel Baker, GP at Mayfield Clinic in Brighton & Hove. Air conditioning can dry your eyes out (Alamy/PA) “This can lead to dry skin, tightness, flaking …

Gaza Cancer Patients Face Rising Death Rate Amid Israeli Curbs, Doctors Say

Gaza Cancer Patients Face Rising Death Rate Amid Israeli Curbs, Doctors Say

Published by Sam Flores

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Hasseb Alwazeer CAIRO/GAZA, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Gaza cancer patients are dying at two to ⁠three times ⁠the pace they did before the start of the ⁠war in the territory, as Israel blocks many from travelling for treatment after destroying the only local specialised facility, Gaza doctors said. Israel ​blew up Gaza’s specialised cancer hospital last year after saying troops found a tunnel used by Hamas militants running beneath it. That means that an estimated 17,000 Gazans with cancer have no local option for ‌chemotherapy or other advanced therapy. Few Palestinians can afford to travel ‌for treatment, and those who can face Israeli restrictions. The military imposes strict caps on daily crossings to Egypt, despite a 2025 Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that requires free movement in and out. Asked for ⁠comment, COGAT, the Israeli ⁠military agency that controls access to Gaza, said it coordinates medical evacuations with the World Health Organization. To depart, ​Gazans must have a valid request from a receiving country and pass “required security screening,” COGAT said. The WHO …

Woman, 29, facing double leg amputation after being ‘dismissed’ by doctors

Woman, 29, facing double leg amputation after being ‘dismissed’ by doctors

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore A 29-year-old woman is facing the prospect of a double knee replacement and the possibility of a double leg amputation after dealing with severe arthritis for seven years. Phoebe Phillips, who lives in Chester, was diagnosed with psoriatic seronegative inflammatory oligoarthritis in 2019, which has progressed to the point that she has been left with no remaining cartilage in her knees, making it incredibly difficult to walk. She said that treatments offered over the years have targeted the symptoms, but not the cause, leading to pain that was “so severe that my GP had to prescribe tramadol and liquid morphine just so I could survive the days”. Now, her disease is at such an advanced stage that she has been advised a double knee replacement is the only remaining option, which will need to be repeated every ten years, before potentially …

AI scribes promise to ease doctors’ workload — but at what cost to patients?

AI scribes promise to ease doctors’ workload — but at what cost to patients?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Visits to a new doctor, physio or specialist often begin with: “Do you mind if I use AI?” According to Off the Record, a new report by Digital Rights Watch, more than 40% of Australian doctors are now using AI scribes. These tools listen to consultations, feeding what they hear into Large Language Models – similar to ChatGPT or Claude – to generate medical notes. For clinicians, AI scribes are an easy sell. They eliminate hours of paperwork, freeing energy to focus on the patient. This can profoundly change how chronically burned out doctors feel about their work. And with Medicare only compensating doctors for face-to-face time, and not note-taking, the financial and emotional incentives for practitioners are undeniable. Yet the benefit for patients is less clear, especially when we have little transparency about who has access to deeply personal medical …

AI doctors and viral trends can make false health claims seem credible. Here’s how to spot misinformation

AI doctors and viral trends can make false health claims seem credible. Here’s how to spot misinformation

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Recent reports have highlighted AI-generated “doctors” spreading dubious health advice to millions of social media users. Fabricated wellness trends can travel just as quickly. A supposed “pink jelly” weight-loss treatment, for example, reportedly fooled at least one celebrity. These examples gain credibility in different ways. Influencers can appear familiar and sincere, while AI-generated doctors can look like qualified professionals. Neither familiarity nor the appearance of expertise tells us whether a medical claim is accurate. Turning to friends and family for health advice is understandable. They may know our circumstances in ways that a healthcare professional cannot during a brief appointment. They can provide emotional support and practical help, and their advice is usually well meant. But somebody can care about us, speak honestly and still be wrong. But somebody can care about us, speak honestly and still be wrong (Getty Images) …