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By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change is harming human health as more people suffer from heat stress, extreme weather and mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. The U.N. agency, in a report issued a day after a climate summit began in Madrid, urged governments to meet ambitious targets to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions saying it could save a million lives a year through lower air pollution alone. “Health is paying the price of the climate crisis. Why? Because our lungs, our brains, our cardiovascular system is very much suffering from the causes of climate change which are overlapping very much with the causes of air pollution,” Maria Neira, Director of WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, told a news briefing. Yet less than 1% of international financing for climate action goes to the health sector, she said, calling it “absolutely outrageous”. Global temperatures could rise sharply this century with “wide-ranging and destructive” consequences after greenhouse gas emissions hit record levels last year, international climate experts warned last week. “WHO considers that climate change is potentially the greatest health threat of the 21st Century,” said WHO expert Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum. “The reason […]

Now 98 years old, he is still working and opens his surgery in the Paris suburbs two mornings a week for patients, some of whom he has treated for decades. With no health woes of his own – he doesn’t even wear glasses during his consultations – Chenay said a quiet retirement had no appeal. “If you’re over 60 they put you with the old people. One day you’ve got cards, the next day bingo, then there’s sudoku… With all that you become a complete idiot. I’m better off being a doctor!” Originally from Angers in western France, Chenay worked as a welder before becoming a doctor, ultimately qualifying as a radiologist before moving back into general practice. His surgery does not look high tech – there is a fax machine but no computer on the desk – but Chenay says he keeps up to date with all the latest developments via his subscriptions to online medical journals. He says a new development in his nearly seven-decade career is patients who erroneously diagnose themselves on the internet and then turn up at his surgery demanding drugs. Many of his patients say they struggle to get appointments in Chevilly-Larue, which has […]

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Not enough breastfeeding costs the global economy almost $1 billion each day due to lost productivity and healthcare costs, researchers said on Friday, as health experts urged more support for nursing mothers. A new website developed by researchers in Canada and Asia showed that the world could have saved $341 billion each year if mothers breastfeed their children for longer, helping prevent early deaths and various diseases. Known as the “Cost of Not Breastfeeding”, the online tool used data from a six-year study supported by the U.S.-based maternal and child nutrition initiative, Alive & Thrive. “It is a human right, it saves lives and improves the prosperity of economies,” Canada-based health economics expert Dylan Walters said about the importance of breastfeeding. Walters, who led the study of more than 100 countries, said the website was the first of its kind and aimed to help policymakers to measure economic losses in individual countries when they do not support breastfeeding. The United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that babies be breastfed exclusively at least their first six months, then have a diet of breast milk and other food until they are two years old. Breastfeeding […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Evidence is weak for whether medicinal cannabis treatments can relieve mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression and psychosis, and doctors should prescribe them with great caution, researchers said on Monday. In a review of scientific studies that analyzed the impact of medicinal cannabinoids on six mental health disorders, the researchers found “a lack of evidence for their effectiveness.” Their findings have important implications for countries such as the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada, where medical cannabis is being made available for patients with certain illness, said Louisa Degenhardt, a drug and alcohol expert at Australia’s University of New South Wales in Sydney. “There is a notable absence of high-quality evidence to properly assess the effectiveness and safety of medicinal cannabinoids … and until evidence from randomized controlled trials is available, clinical guidelines cannot be drawn up around their use in mental health disorders,” she said as her results were published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. Despite a lack of clinical trial evidence, anecdotally some military veterans and others who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety say they have found cannabis helpful in easing some of their symptoms. Other conditions cannabis is used for include […]

Below is our recent interview with Jason Flowerday, CEO at MDBriefCase: MDBriefCase mission is to accelerate the impact of our global stakeholders by enabling better healthcare decision-making. LEARN MORE

As part of our redesign and to ensure we protect our members’ privacy, upon initial log in, all members are required to reset their passwords and update their profile.  We apologize for this inconvenience. For quick access to the login page click here. Step 1: Click “Forgot Password” Step 2: Enter your username (email address) Your username is the same as the email address you used to register. If you are a previous MDBriefCase, MDBriefCase Australia, AdvancingIn, AdvancingPractice or rxBriefCase member, enter the email address used for your old account.After entering your email address, click the “Email Reset Link” button. (Only Once)NOTE: Clicking the button multiple times will send multiple password reset emails and may result in the reset link not working correctly. Step 3: Reset confirmation. After clicking the button, you will see a confirmation message that your request has been submitted.Please Note: The password reset email may take upwards of 5-10 minutes to appear in your inbox.If you do not see it in this time, please check your spam folders. If you do not receive the reset email within 10 minutes, begin again from Step 1. Step 4: Click the password reset link in your emailYou will receive […]

You’ve likely noticed by now, that we have launched a new website! Your feedback has been helpful.We have a few wrinkles to smooth out and hope you will bear with us as we work to iron bugs out. Click here for tips on:1. Logging in2. Why MDBriefcase? I’m a nurse/pharmacist/AHW. Is this content even for me?3. Where did my certificates and course history go?4. Why can’t I find my course5. I’m a pharmacist. Where did my PDL go? 1. Logging In As part of our redesign and to ensure we protect our members’ privacy, upon initial log in, all members are required to reset their passwords and update their profile. We apologize for this inconvenience. For quick access to the login page click here. A few items to keep in mind when resetting/updating your password:– Your Username is the email address associated with your profile– The confirmation email with a single use unique URL, should be received in your inbox within in 1-5 min– If you don’t see it, please check your spam folder – If you’ve submitted a request more than once, make sure you are using the most recent email (the previous URLs will have “expired”) For a […]

TORONTO, Sept. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MDBriefCase Group Inc. (“MDBC” or the “Company”), a global leader in e-learning products and services that aims to accelerate better decision-making in healthcare, announced collaborations with two expert advisors, Dr. David Strain, Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Exeter (London, UK), and Dr. Mohamed Farghaly, Associate Professor at Dubai Medical College (Dubai, UAE). These collaborations will continue to support MDBC’s foothold as one of the foremost online, continuing professional development providers across Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East. These exciting new collaborations come at a transformational time in the Company’s history as a global leader in online medical education, as they coincide with the launch of MDBC’s enhanced digital presence including a new learning platform that applies cutting-edge instructional design to all of MDBC’s global products and services. “The opportunity to work with Drs. Strain and Farghaly as expert advisors to the Company provides MDBriefCase with access to highly-respected thought leaders with deep clinical and industry insights,” says Jason Flowerday, CEO of MDBC. “Our entry, and the acceleration of MDBC’s world-class online medical education, into the UK, Europe and the Middle East is an organizational priority that will […]