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NOVEMBER 2009
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Radley College Education Day
Approx 45 members both doctors and nurses assembled at Radley College
to be educated in a very rounded way with two very significant morning
speakers and a very interesting afternoon of interactive education. It
was a windy and blustery day which meant some interesting times for the
accompanying spouses party, but it was very enjoyable for all who
attended and very well organised both educationally and socially.
The morning began with a talk from Professor Hugh Watkins who is the
Professor and Head of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of
Oxford. His special interest is in genetics and genetic medicine and in
particular with regard to cardiomyopathy. He gave a very rounded and
informative talk with regard to the actual risk of dying a sudden death
as opposed to the various views, which are upheld with the regard to the
purpose of screening or otherwise. I am pleased to say that a copy of
his report is attached to the web site, a few key points which I found
most interesting. I noticed that you can expect in the United Kingdom to
have between 200-500 deaths per year, a high figure but not
(fortunately) an every day occurrence for general practice. A very
interesting survey done in America where they felt screening was
appropriate they managed to create out of their population of 50,
worried well, which for me made the case very strongly against wide
spread screening and Professor Watkins certainly came down on the side
of very cautious screening, using it only in the context of assessing
those with symptoms which may put them at risk, taking extremely
comprehensive and detailed family history of sudden unexpected death,
and appropriate investigations. For general practice they seemed to
cover all the appropriate eventualities and I was pleased with the
detail he went and it is all there in his presentation.
We went straight on to discuss young peoples health led by Dr Dick
Churchill chair of the RCGP adolescent task group. This was an
interesting two part talk running through the way in which adolescent
medicine has developed and changed in the last fifty years or so and yet
a very wonderful presentation teasing out for us a whole series of
questions about attitudes and health related issues etc with teenagers.
There was some good news, and there was some bad news, noting the
increased appearance of alcohol consumption but also noting that to a
certain extent sexual activity has reduced and so teenage pregnancies
have come down by 10% in the age groups of our populations. This was
another fascinating presentation and I am pleased to inform you that
this is also available on the web site.
After a very enjoyable lunch in the pavilion and some important
networking we returned to the auditorium for two concurrent
presentations based on “Every Child Matters” and “Staying Safe”. Dr
Moore (MO at Radley) presented some very interesting figures with regard
to injuries at his school directly associated to all types of sport very
much focusing on the rugby field his talk is also on our web site and is
a very useful presentation for us all to think about and reflect on when
advising with regard to managing this sport in our schools.
The other talk by Jane Lambert (Lead Nurse at Radley) focused on keeping
children safe it gave us a lot of information about the various ways in
which we need to be protecting the children in our care using all
available resources.
The last of our sessions involved individual group work after which we
all reported back with a lot of interesting debate.
After a very interesting, and a somewhat restful tour of the school in
two groups, we went to the very well equipped and organised medical
centre to regroup and change for a lovely evening reception in the
mansion house, which was followed by dinner in the great hall, a very
satisfying end to a wonderful day. Thanks to all those that contributed
such a lot in the way of hard work.
Dr Neil D Arnott
Honorary Secretary
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