Newsbites
United States
Geneva Conventions not known
Medical students in the United States know little about military medical ethics, and many students are unaware of doctors' ethical duties under the Geneva Conventions, a survey of 1700 students has found. Ninety four per cent said that they had received less than one hour of instruction in military medical ethics during medical school, and 34% of students did not know that the Geneva Conventions require doctors to "treat the sickest first, regardless of nationality."
About 70% of US military doctors are recruited from civilian medical schools in exchange for scholarships, and congressional legislation also allows the military to call up civilian doctors in case of a wartime shortage.
US Army doctor treating trauma petient in Iraq
"If we were to get drafted we could become military physicians in two or three weeks, so we thought maybe we ought to see if [students] know anything about military ethics in general," said the head researcher, J Wesley Boyd, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (www.time.com).
Palestine
Militants criticise doctors' strike
The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees, organisations that operate in the Gaza strip that are regarded as terrorist organisations by Israel and the United States, have urged Hamas to punish striking doctors, who they say have abandoned hospitals on the orders of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
The committees said in a statement that the doctors refused to give medical treatment to members of the police forces run by Hamas who were wounded in an Israeli air strike on a police station.
Doctors in hospitals in the Gaza strip have been on partial strike since June, when Hamas took over the coastal territory. They are protesting against measures by Hamas, including appointing pro-Hamas directors and discriminating against medical workers loyal to President Abbas's Fatah movement. "The doctors are not offering good services to their people," said the committees' spokesman Abu Abeer (www.xinhuanet.com).
Global drug industry
Gifts for poor world doctors attacked
Multinational drug companies have been criticised for courting doctors in developing countries with dinners and gifts, such as deposits on cars, to boost sales of their drugs.
A report from Consumers International, a London based federation of consumer groups from 113 countries, said that self regulation by the multinational drug industry had failed. "Up to 50% of medicines in developing countries are inappropriately prescribed, dispensed, or sold," it says.
In many rich countries drug companies give doctors gifts of only minimal value, such as pens. But in poorer economies, gifts from drug companies to doctors included laptops, club memberships, domestic cattle, foreign conferences at five star hotels, and school tuition fees, the report said.
The director general of Consumers International, Richard Lloyd, called for a ban on all gifts to doctors. "Weak regulation makes these markets an easy target for the marketing techniques of multinational drug companies, but consumer health expenditure in these countries can ill afford to be squandered on irrational drug use," he said.
The global trade body the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations said that it would take time to get its code of conduct adopted everywhere. "I think it is not something that is achievable overnight," said a spokesman, Guy Willis. "The issue is how we get there" (www.guardian.co.uk).
Great Britain
Abortion laws debated
Great Britain's upper time limit for abortions should not be reduced from 24 weeks because the chances of survival before that time are still very low, a committee of MPs has recommended.
The report on the scientific arguments surrounding abortion, from the House of Commons science and technology select committee, also proposes ending the requirement that women who seek an abortion must gain the signatures of two doctors. Phil Willis, chairman of the committee, said this was merely a "rubber stamping exercise." Women would still need to obtain two signatures after the first trimester.
But there was clear disagreement over the report's conclusions. A minority report with recommendations to the contrary has been produced by two of the 11 MPs on the committee.
Antiabortion campaigners have also been frustrated by the committee's focus on purely scientific rather than moral matters.
Mr Willis thinks that the time limits for abortion are not the most important matter, but rather the number of unwanted pregnancies: "Two hundred thousand abortions a year really is saying to the government and saying to the UK that current policies in terms of sex education, in terms of contraception, in terms of sexual health, are not working" (www.guardian.co.uk).
India
Doctors go to business school
India's rapidly expanding healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors have raised an interest in business careers for many Indian doctors, the Indian Medical Association has said.
The association says that 1000-1500 doctors are enrolling on management programmes throughout the country each year, and business schools have increased their medical graduate intake by up to 66% in the past two years.
"These doctors don't want to leave their own field, but go higher up with some value addition through MBAs [masters in business administration degrees]," said V K Menon of the Indian School of Business. "They want to work on international assignments, and the demand is allowing them to shape their careers the way they want" (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com).
Student BMJ 2007;15:427-470 ISSN 0966-6494 | December
