(2021-09-04). [World Report] Health under cyberattack. thelancet.com Cyberattacks are becoming a major issue of health security, but are they getting the attention they need? John Zarocostas reports.
(2021-09-04). [Perspectives] The return. thelancet.com Since its origin, Greek tragedy has offered a space for audiences to reflect on current moral and ethical dilemmas. For example, Sophocles' Antigone puts at its centre the clash between behaving according to one's personal values and complying with unjust societal laws, while Electra focuses on the conflict between filial love and the need for justice. In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, readings of Greek tragedy were also used to help health-care workers to address moral injury through the programme Theater of War for Frontline Medical Providers, previously described in this journal.
(2021-09-04). [Correspondence] Responding to responsive behaviour in Alzheimer's disease — Author's reply. thelancet.com I thank Desmond O'Neill and Sean Kennelly for pointing out the import ≠ance of behaviour as being responsive to external factors, rather than being an intrinsic deficit of Alzheimer's disease. We acknowledge the use of non-pharmacological measures here, but did not include it in our Seminar1 because of our focus on the earliest stages of the disease, in which behavioural aspects, such as described by O'Neill and Kennelly, are less obvious and less prevalent than in the later stages.
(2021-09-04). [Perspectives] The race to make a COVID-19 vaccine. thelancet.com Sarah Gilbert, Catherine Green, and their scientific colleagues at the University of Oxford who made a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that has brought the world to a standstill, are heroes of our time, already decorated in the UK by the Queen and, in Gilbert's case, lauded by Mattel, which has made a Barbie doll in her image. Fired by a mission to save the world, these researchers are dedicated, altruistic, and determined that their vaccine would not only be safe and effective, but also cheap and easy to use in the poorest corners of the globe.
(2021-09-04). [Clinical Picture] Diagnosing pneumomediastinum in a neonate using a lung ultrasound. thelancet.com A preterm baby—delivered by caesarean section at 36 weeks and 5 days due to pathological trace on cardiotocography—presented immediately after birth with tachypnoea, and sternal, intercostal, and subcostal recessions.
(2021-09-04). [World Report] The long road ahead for COVID-19 vaccination in Africa. thelancet.com Only 2 ∑5% of Africans are vaccinated against COVID-19. Millions more doses will be needed to meet even modest targets and experts are sceptical of success. Sara Jerving reports.
(2021-09-04). [Correspondence] Responding to responsive behaviour in Alzheimer's disease. thelancet.com The Seminar on Alzheimer's disease by Philip Scheltens and colleagues1 contains a wealth of valuable information on biological and epidemiological aspects of the condition. However, an area of concern was the relegation of what were termed neuropsychiatric syndromes to drug treatment alone.
(2021-09-04). [Perspectives] Alika Lafontaine: Indigenous and Canadian change maker. thelancet.com Alika Lafontaine was running late for our Zoom call because he was seeing patients. An anaesthesiologist at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, he had already intubated two patients with COVID-19 that morning—both were young, unvaccinated adults. In a world of divided opinion about vaccines, health-care reform, and how to achieve equity, diversity, and inclusion in the medical professions, Lafontaine's ability to humanise and challenge health-care narratives and systems is fuelling change in Canada.
(2021-09-04). [Editorial] Medical professionalism and physician wellbeing. thelancet.com Integrity, compassion, altruism, continuous improvement, excellence, working in partnership—these are the values of medical professionalism, according to a working group formed by the Royal College of Physicians in 2005. More recently, ideas about professionalism have focused on the attributes required for a modern doctor to fulfil their roles as healer, innovator, researcher, and patient partner. But much of the thinking around medical professionalism remains rooted in an idealised, traditional, and paternalistic foundation of self-sacrifice and service to humanity, in which the perceived good doctor prior…
(2021-09-04). [Correspondence] The remoteness of pain in Canada's Indigenous peoples' collective memory. thelancet.com To continue the thread of the Editorial about Canada's indigenous people,1 the pain of Canada's indigenous peoples' collective memory is neither buried nor unearthed from the living stories, silencing truths, understanding, mourning or reconciliation, deepening living pain, and trauma in some of the world's most remote regions.