Contents: June 2005

Editorials

Global functions at the World Health Organization
WHO must reassert its role in integrating, coordinating, and advancing the worldwide agenda on health say Jennifer Prah Ruger and Derek Yach

Aid after disasters
Mark van Ommeren and colleagues argue that aid after disasters needs a long term public mental health perspective

News

Top stories

Student affairs

Medical education

Humanitarian developments

Medical life

Sexual discrimination and harassment affects career choices

Medics worldwide: news and opportunities from the IFMSA

Education

Picture Quiz: A smoker's hand

Common skin infections in children: Scabies and head lice
In the third part of our series about common skin infections in children, Michael J Sladden and Graham A Johnston review scabies and head lice

ABC of preterm birth: Immediate care of the preterm infant

10 Minute consultation: Hyperhidrosis

Blood simple
When you first start your jobs after graduating, the chances are you'll have to take blood rather a lot. Newly qualified doctors, Peter Cartledge and Georgina Moore share their experience and look at the evidence

Pub medic: Snakes and staffs
Two different symbols combining snakes and staffs have been used to represent the medical profession. Laxmi Vilas Ghimire looks at the history of these symbols and asks which is better

Puzzle: Gout

Careers

Step by step
Many doctors are lured to the United States to practise medicine. But getting there is a drawn out and costly process, as Katherine Brazzale explains

Becoming a US medical doctor
Richard Hwang explains how the system works for US citizens

Life and loathes of a new doctor: A grave subject

Kata tonic
Zoe Campbell was born and raised in Nottingham. She took up karate at the age of 8. She is the current ladies world karate champion, having won numerous medals along the way. She obtained a first class biochemistry degree at Birmingham University before becoming a postgraduate student at Leicester-Warwick Medical School. She works as a house officer at Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry

Talk to the handheld

ABC of conflict and disaster: Humanitarian assistance: standards, skills, training, and experience

Tips on targets of bullying

Get yourself connected
"I'm all right thank you; I can manage quite well by myself." Is that you? Is that you keeping yourself and your dilemmas to yourself? As Ruth Chambers explains, you need a mentor

The advice zone

Papers

Paper plus: Resolution of deliberate self harm: qualitative interview study
Leanne Tite takes you through a paper about the reasons why people stop self harming and explains the use of a qualitative research method

Life

Girl talk
In some countries, the number of female undergraduates outweighs men - the so called feminisation of medicine. But is this something to worry about, as some people have suggested? Finola Lynch finds out

Communicating with people with learning disabilities
In this part of our series on communication, Keri-Michèle Lodge looks at the problems facing people with learning difficulties

Ashes to ashes
With an increasing number of countries promising to ban smoking in public places,

Thomas Mac Mahon weighs up the evidence about the effects of passive smoking

Straight outta India
In India, backward attitudes to sex, and homosexuality in particular, make tackling sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, difficult. Balaji Ravichandran discusses Indian doctors' attitudes to non-heterosexuality

Letters

Job market needs revamping

Patients with body dysmorphic disorder need risk assessment

Problem based learning: look to Manchester

Engineering and medine: more options

Reviews

End celebrity endorsement of screening, say researchers

Tarnation

Premature birth

Health care is about service, not about discrimination

Eyespy: June 2005