Patient Stories In Modern Medicine: Medical Symposium Highlights Importance Of Case Reports

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Conferences;  Public Health;  Medical Practice Management
Article Date: 21 Mar 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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The event, 'Celebrating case reports, the stories in health care', will be held at the Royal College of Physicians in London on 15 May this year, and will bring together leading doctors from many medical specialties. The meeting will be chaired by the Editors of Cases Network's journals - Richard Smith (the former editor of the BMJ) and Professor Michael Kidd (Flinders University, Australia).

Richard Smith said of Cases Network's goal, "Case reports are at the heart of medicine. They are how all doctors learn, and every patient, no matter how "ordinary" his or her problem, has something to teach us. We want to revitalise the excitement of case reports and encourage all doctors to write and read case reports. It's one way to recover some of the lost humanity of medicine."

Sir David Weatherall, Emeritus Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, will provide the meeting's keynote speech. Other speakers' topics will include the role of case reports in sharing knowledge on drug side effects (from Professor Jeffrey Aronson, Oxford), the relevance of case reports to GPs (Geoff Wong, UCL) and the benefit of case reports in the developing world (Professor Monappa Hegde, Manipal, India). Sir Iain Chalmers, one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration and a leading UK voice for evidence-based medicine will provide alternative insight into the risks as well as the benefits of case reports. The full programme is below.

With such increased access to case report data and improved technologies for categorising it, the value of case reports in medical research and education is expected to reach new levels. This symposium hosted by Cases Network, the world-leading resource for the publication and discussion of medical case reports, therefore comes at a crucial time.

Notes:

Website Links

Cases Network: http://casesnetwork.com/

Symposium registration: http://casesnetwork.com/events

Cases Journal: http://casesjournal.com

Journal of Medical Case Reports: http://jmedicalcasereports.com

About the Symposium

The forthcoming symposium, entitled "Celebrating case reports, the stories in health care" will be held all day on Friday 15 May, at the Royal College of Physicians in London. The event will be open to all but of particular interest to clinical professionals at all levels.

Delegates can register online [http://casesnetwork.com/events]

Full programme:

Introduction: Michael Kidd (Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Medical Case Reports) The importance of case reports, the stories in health care

• Keynote: David Weatherall (Emeritus Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford)
  
  
• The history of case reports: Brian Hurwitz (Chair of Medicine and the Arts, King's College London)
  
  
• How stories show what surveys can't: Stephen Ramsden (Director of the National Patient Safety Campaign)

Science and case reports

• Adverse drug reactions and the role of case reports: Jeffrey Aronson (Reader in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Oxford)
  
  
• Evidence-based medicine and case reports: Tom Jefferson (Cochrane Collaboration)
  
  
• The benefits and risks of case reports: Iain Chalmers (James Lind Library)

Cases Network Awards: Richard Smith (Editor-in-Chief, Cases Journal)

Diseases, disciplines and case reports

• Benefits of case reports for the developing world: Monappa Hegde (Vice Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India)
  
  
• Case reports, infectious diseases and the developing world: Geoffrey Pasvol (Professor of Infection & Tropical Medicine at Imperial College London)
  
  
• Case reports in primary care: Geoff Wong (Walport Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care, UCL)
  
  
• Introducing the Cases Database: Elizabeth Slade (Publisher, Cases Network)

Patients and the future of health care

• Health Talk Online: Ann McPherson (Medical Director of Health Talk Online)
  
  
• Web 2.0 and the future of health care: Paul Hodgkin (Founder and Chief Executive of Patient Opinion)

About Cases Network

Cases Network comprises Cases Journal and Journal of Medical Case Reports.

Cases Network is making a call to doctors at all levels to share their clinical experience and the stories of their patients by publishing their case reports. Cases Network's mission is to democratise medical publishing, by enabling all doctors to become publishers, thereby advancing the world's medical knowledge case by case.

The two journals began as part of BioMed Central, the world's largest open access publisher, until BioMed Central was sold by Science Navigation Group to Springer Science+Business Media late last year. The two journals remain part of Science Navigation Group and will soon be adding more advanced functionality with the launch of the powerful Cases Database which will enable doctors to quickly find case reports relevant to their patients, and to identify trends across cases.

Richard Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Cases Journal, has written an editorial announcing the launch of Cases Network: http://casesjournal.com/casesjournal/article/view/6366/2370

Source: Elizabeth Slade
Faculty of 1000: Biology and Medicine

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