Contents: November 2004
Editorials
Human cloning: ethical considerations
The debate surrounding therapeutic cloning has intensified since the granting of the first UK license for its study in August this year. Jez Fabes and Francesca Mazzola outline some of the main ethical questions
Publishing tobacco tar measurements on packets
Figures for tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide are misleading and should be removed from the packaging of tobacco products, say Nigel Gray and Peter Boyle
News
Can country music drive you to suicide?
Students and teachers prefer early experience
Infectious diseases increase in Iraq as public health service deteriorates
Medics worldwide: news and opportunities from the IFMSA
Medical schools teach with humiliation and disrespect
Prisoners held under England's antiterrorism act face psychological damage
Education
Egos, trials, and nobel prizes
In light of the recent polio vaccination campaign in Africa, Christian Schopflin takes a look at the origins of the vaccine
Beginner's guide to genetics: Sex and genetics
In the third part of our series, Adrián J González and colleagues explain the genetic bases of sexual development
Clinical exam skills: Hand signs
In the third part of our series about clinical exam skills, Ian Bickle takes you through typical questions about hand signs
Essential Haematology
Stephen French and Arun Kochhar explain how to interpret blood results
Tips on... How to spot a skull fracture
Picture quiz: Puzzle: Alcoholism
Careers
Understanding personality type: Extraversion and introversion
In the second article in our series, Anita Houghton asks you to consider where you focus your attention--inside or out
Shift work and doctors' health
Thanks to new European legislation on working hours, more doctors will have to work unpopular shift systems. John Hobson spells out how shift work can affect your health and performance, and what you can do to protect yourself
Surgical dress code - according to Sir Lancelot Spratt
Luke Cascarini turns to the greatest surgeon of them all for some (spoof) sartorial advice
Epidemiologists are not skin specialists
Dharam J Kumbhani explains how studying epidemiology has influenced his clinical practice
15 minute interview: All the president's men
Papers
Paper plus: How does your dog smell? Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer
Leanne Tite takes you through a proof of principle study about whether dogs can detect bladder cancer through the smell of human urine
Life
WHO are you?
An internship at the World Health Organization might conjure up different images--a glamorous way of enhancing your CV and networking or boring bureaucratic office work. Darshan Sudarshi explains
Could animal activists affect your research?
Plans to give UK police more power when dealing with animal rights activists have been well publicised recently, together with pharmaceutical companies taking their research and animal tests elsewhere to avoid huge security costs. But how much is the activity of animal activists affecting researching doctors? Ruwanee Haris finds out
Access for all
Doctors in the United Kingdom have traditionally come from the wealthy privately educated backgrounds. Lindsay Banham and Rachel Kemp are involved in a project to expand intake from lower socioeconomic groups
Hostage
You may think an article about how to survive if you are taken hostage is a bit far fetched for the studentBMJ, but medical students do either study in countries where their status puts them at risk or may want to work with a non-governmental organisation. Ian Palmer gives some advice
Emergency: America
US medical student Oveys Mansuri has been fortunate enough to train in a newly refurbished emergency department. So, too, have Nigerian students, Chibuzo Odigwe and Seye Abimbola. Their situations are, however, quite different
The Nigerian emergency department
Want to know whats going on for medical students?
Letters
Health and human rights: not so simple
Doctors' have a duty to protect human rights
Medical schools should not select using race
Reviews
Electives in the United States and Canada
Positive discrimination favours no one
