medical and pharmaceutical points in seuyoty’s anecdotes (maqaamas)

Anecdotes

The well-known Arpanet was the first operational packet-switching network. 1 Almost completely unknown is what we claim was the second operational packet-switching network, the LFK Network—although, admittedly , it was a fairly minimal network. Work on the LFK Network began in fall 1970, and it was installed and accepted by fall 1972. It was used as part of a logistics system relating to the No...

Anecdotes

Evaluating anecdotes and case reports.

Stories are more memorable than statistics. Newspaper or magazine articles about some new chemotherapy for cancer typically will include an interview with a patient who is doing well on it. Websites of alternative practitioners and clinics sometimes feature stories by or about patients describing their successful treatment. These stories can be very persuasive to readers, but some scientists di...

Continuing medical education and pharmaceutical industry.

Continuing medical education providers' (academia) and industrial relationship is drawing attention all over the world. To date, there are no national commercial support guidelines available in Pakistan to properly regulate cooperation between the two distinct entities. However, the fact is that the future of all continuing medical education depends on pharmaceutical support and the providers a...

Medical journals and pharmaceutical companies: uneasy bedfellows.

One of my first experiences of the relation between medical journals and pharmaceutical companies occurred in the early 1980s after the BMJ had published papers suggesting that a new non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, benoxaprofen, might have serious side effects. We were visited by three stern men from Eli Lilly, the makers of the drug. Tony Smith, the deputy editor, conducted the meeting a...

Covert pharmaceutical promotion in free medical journals.

534 CMAJ, March 22, 2011, 183(5) © 2011 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors The influence of the promotional practices of pharmaceutical manufacturers on the prescribing behaviour of physicians has long been recognized. Since the early 1980s, studies of this phenomenon have repeatedly shown that physicians’ knowledge of drug properties is more consistent with sales information than wi...