Centenary for the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine: a conference, awards for medical writing and new associate memberships

The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine is organising its Centenary Conference, which is to be held on 7^th December at the Royal College of Physicians in London. The December 2018 FPM Centenary Conference will include a poster awards session showcasing national and international studies aimed at Transforming Health. The Conference will be eligible for 6 CPD points.

Register for the Conference 

Submit an abstract for the Transforming Health poster session at the 7th December Conference.

Talks by expert clinicians will provide updates on best medical practice in diagnostics and new therapies with regard to common serious clinical disorders, ranging from lung disease to cancer, stroke and cardiac disease, liver problems  and other serious clinical disease. Speakers will also discuss management of new clinical challenges, including antibiotic resistance, the impact of ageing on co-morbidity, and other important current challenges for clinical practice.

Speakers and discussants will include Professor Christopher Byrne, University of Southampton on Identifying and managing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Professor Peter Barnes FRS, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, with updates on treating asthma and COPD, Professor Tom Kirkwood CBE, University of Newcastle, on ageing, health and multi-morbidity, Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, University of Liverpool NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics on applying personalised medicine in clinical practice. Dr Tim Nicholson, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s Medical School, on functional neurological disorders and Professor Anthony Rudd, Guy’s and St Thomas’s, National Clinical Director for Stroke with NHS England, on reducing the severity of stroke. FPM President Donald Singer FPM journal editors Bernard Cheung (Postgraduate Medical Journal) and Ken Redekop (Health Policy and Technology) will give a brief overview of the FPM and its activities.
 

The FPM is a British non-profit organisation founded in the autumn of 1919 as a merger of the Fellowship of Medicine and the Postgraduate Medical Association, with Sir William Osler as its first president. Its initial aims were the development of educational programmes in all branches of postgraduate medicine. The FPM now organises clinical and research meetings and publishes two journals. The FPM has since 1925 published the international journal, the Postgraduate Medical Journal. In 2012 the Fellowship launched a new international journal, Health Policy and Technology, published on the Fellowship’s behalf by Elsevier.

The Postgraduate Medical Journal publishes topical reviews, commentaries and original papers on themes across the medical spectrum. It provides continuing professional development for all doctors, from those in training, to their teachers, and active clinicians, by publishing papers on a wide range of topics relevant to clinical practice. Papers published in PMJ describe current practice and new developments in all branches of medicine; describe relevance and impact of translational research on clinical practice; provide background relevant to examinations; and papers on medical education and medical education research.

The FPM’s peer-reviewed journal Health Policy and Technology focuses on past, present and future health policy and the role of technology in clinical and non-clinical national and international health environments. It aims to foster closer links with policy-makers, health professionals, health technology providers, patient groups and academia.

Further ways in which the FPM will mark its anniversary  include introducing a new Associate Member category for the FPM and launch of new international awards for excellence in medical writing by doctors in social media.

The new Associate Member category for the FPM will be open to doctors in established postgraduate training posts, to senior doctors in established posts and to other experts who are interested in postgraduate medicine. Authors and reviewers for the official journals of the FPM – Health Policy and Technology and the Postgraduate Medical journal will be entitled to a reduced membership fee for their first year as Associate Members. Benefits for Associate Members will include a reduction in the registration fee for attending FPM educational events and a reduced annual electronic subscription to the PMJ or HPT journal. See the FPM website for more details about how to apply to become anAssociate Member of the FPM .

The FPM will also launch international awards to recognise best social media writing on medical themes.  To be eligible, articles should be aimed at increasing understanding by the public and health professionals of important health-related issues. Articles published online since 1st January 2018 will be eligible.

Up to 5 awards of £100 each will initially be made – one for each major geographical region: the Americas, Europe, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand.  The judging panel will include health professionals from the FPM and from the Editorial Boards of HPT and the PMJ and experts in social media. Winning writers will have the opportunity to publish their award-winning article in HPT or the PMJ, depending on the theme of the article.

See the FPM website for details of how to enter for the writing awards.

Developing health policy to protect the heart and circulation

Diseases of the heart and circulation are the commonest preventable cause of disability and death in the UK and elsewhere in the developed world. Heart and circulatory disorders are also rapidly overtaking communicable diseases as serious health problems in less developed countries. Policy makers need to take an increasing interest in encouraging lifestyle approaches aimed at reducing the incidence and severity of these serious disorders of the heart and circulation.

This one day symposium, with speakers from Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK was organised by the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust in partnership with the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine.

David Slovick, Leslie Morgan OBE DL, Donald Singer, Wade Dimitri, Ken Redekop, Alison Halliday, Robin Poston

FPM President and CRT chair Donald Singer said: “Despite recent efforts, obesity and diabetes are increasing epidemics in the UK and internationally. Political leaders have a huge opportunity to improve both national health and wealth by a sustained increase in the effective public health measures needed to prevent and address the major risk factors for premature heart, stroke and other vascular disease.”

Speaker Professor Kornelia Kotseva from Imperial College in London said: “Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of mortality accounting for 17.5 million deaths every year globally and 4.3 million deaths every year in Europe. The proportion of all deaths attributable to CVD is greater among women (49%) than in men (40%), with large geographic inequalities between countries.”

Speaker Professor Alison Halliday from the University of Oxford and President of the European Society of Vascular Surgery added: “Stroke causes many thousands of deaths in the UK every year and is the country’s leading cause of disability. Billions of pounds are spent on treating the causes and the results of stroke – hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, smoking, but the greatest risk factor is age, and, despite attention to known modifiable risk factors, the numbers of new and recurrent strokes have not fallen significantly in recent years.”

Professor Bernard Cheung from the University of Hong Kong and Editor of the FPM’s journal the Postgraduate Medical Journal said: “The biggest news in the world of hypertension is the publication of the latest American guidelines (ACC/AHA) on the prevention, detection, evaluation and management of high blood pressure. The most controversial change is in the definition of hypertension, which now includes a systolic blood pressure of 130-139 mmHg or a diastolic blood pressure of 80-89 mmHg. This change will, at a stroke, make a sizeable proportion of the general population hypertensive.”

Professor Ken Redekop from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and Editor-in-Chief of the FPM’s journal Health Policy and Technology noted that “Precision medicine (PM) refers to the separation of patients into more homogeneous subgroups, with the rationale being that patients who will benefit from a treatment should receive the treatment while patients who will not benefit should not.” He added: “When all factors (including cost-effectiveness) are considered, a precision medicine strategy may or may not be the best one in the effort to improve cardiovascular health, and health outcomes in general.”

Heart surgeon Wade Dimitri commented that: “heart surgery in the UK has led the development and refinement of many techniques and health technologies and has resulted in significant reduction in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. Such progress and improvements have not followed in the developing world where mortality and morbidity remain high, approaching 60% in certain countries. Urgent efforts are needed to reverse this trend and improve outcomes of adults and children with heart disease undergoing heart surgery in less developed countries.”

Professor Ramon Estruch, Barcelona said: "The Mediterranean diet has strong research evidence as an effective healthy lifestyle approach to protect the heart and brain. Similar healthy diet cultures are found in other regions on the 40th parallel in both the north and southern hemispheres around the world."

Papers from the symposium will be published in the journals of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.

Note for Editors
For more on the themes of the event,
email: fpm.chandos@gmail.com or call 07494 450 805.

Speaker abstracts and biographies

Meeting programme: Health policy for the heart and circulation

90 years for the Postgraduate Medical Journal

A Symposium is being organised by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine to mark the 90th Anniversary of its first official journal, the Postgraduate Medical Journal. The Symposium will be held at the Medical Society of London on on 1st October 2015.
Speakers on the day will comment on what medicine was like in the 1920s, current progress in their field, and what is in prospect over the next 90 years.
Other speakers will include FPM Fellow Professor Peter Barnes FRS, London, who will speak on advances in respiratory medicine, Professor Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge and Past-President of the Royal College of Physicians who will discuss opportunities to improve public health through a focus on health in the workplace, Professor Melanie Davies (Leicester) on progress in managing diabetes, vascular surgeon Professor Alison Halliday (Oxford) on carotid surgery to prevent stroke, FPM Fellow chemical biologist Andrew Marsh (Warwick) who will discuss advances in drug discovery, FPM Fellow cardiac surgeon Wade Dimitri (Coventry) who will discuss early development of heart surgery  Dr Paul Nunn (London), former Director of the WHO Tuberculosis Programme, on advances in managing tuberculosis, FPM Fellow Professor Munir Pirmohamed (Liverpool) who will discuss Progress in Personalised Medicine, Emeritus Professor Terence Ryan (Oxford) on Sir William Osler and Professor Karol Sikora (London) on cancer - a disease of our time.

The Postgraduate Medical Journal publishes topical reviews, commentaries and original papers on themes across the medical spectrum. It provides continuing professional development for all doctors, from those in training, to their teachers, and active clinicians, by publishing papers on a wide range of topics relevant to clinical practice.
Papers published in the PMJ describe current practice and new developments in all branches of medicine; describe relevance and impact of translational research on clinical practice; provide background relevant to examinations; and papers on medical education and medical education research.  The FPM is a British non-profit organisation founded in the autumn of 1919 as a merger of the Fellowship of Medicine and the Postgraduate Medical Association, with Sir William Osler as its first president. Its initial aims were the development of educational programmes in all branches of postgraduate medicine. 
The FPM organises clinical and research meetings and publishes two journals. The FPM has since 1925 published the international journal, the Postgraduate Medical Journal. In 2012 the Fellowship launched a new international journal, Health Policy and Technology, published on the Fellowship's behalf by Elsevier.

BMS Young Investigators' Symposium: Advances in the Microcirculation

An excellent scientific event held at the University of Warwick, with international participants from Russia, Italy, Poland and Germany.
An outstanding series of young scientists presented undergraduate projects, PhD research and post-doctoral studies, topics ranging from fundamental endothelial signalling to cancer, retinal, cardiovascular and stroke mechanisms, biomarkers and treatments.
The organisers are to be congratulated on a well-run, well-chaired and lively event, fully justifying its generous support by major UK cognate societies and organisations, including the British Pharmacological Society, the Physiology Society, the Company of Biologists, The Richard Bright VEGF Research Trust, and the British Heart Foundation, complementing core support by the British Microcirculation Society, and making the event affordable for young life scientists interested in the microcirculation, including support in the form of travel bursaries for abstract presenters.
Future BMS Young Investigators' Symposia deserve to be a priority in the meetings' diary for young UK and international scientists interested in the microcirculation and in a friendly forum for first presentations, asking a first question of colleagues and more senior presenters, and making research contacts for their future careers: next provisionally set for 2 years time.
Look out for BMS events at the International Union of Physiological Societies Congress in Birmingham 21-26 July 2013 and the joint BMS-BPS symposium on new pharmacological targets in the microcirculation at Pharmacology 2013 in December in London.
See more at BMS Young Investigators blog.

Mediterranean diet and Cardiovascular Health

Ramon Estruch, a Spanish researcher on benefits of the Mediterranean diet, will speak in London at a Symposium on Cardiovascular Health on 5th December 2013.

Registration and abstract submission is now open for the Symposium.

Professor Estruch's theme will be outcomes of his multi-centre study reporting that, for patients who already are at high cardiovascular risk, a Mediterranean diet without calorie restriction is more effective than a low fat diet in reducing the occurrence of serious cardiovascular events.

His findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of February 2013.

This event is one of a series of Symposia on Cardiovascular Health being held by the CVRT at the rooms of the Medical Society of London, one of the oldest continuing medical societies in the world.

Weblink for 5th December Symposium on Cardiovascular Research.

More on the research by Professor Estruch.

The symposium is being organised by  the Cardiovascular Research Trust.

Spanish researchers provide evidence for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease by a Mediterranean diet

Professor Ramón Estruch from Barcelona and his colleagues have published in the New England Journal of Medicine results of an important study on the greater value of a Mediterranean diet vs. low fat diet in the prevention of cardiovascular risk.  

In their multi-centre, randomised trial in Spain, 7447 high risk patients with no clinical vascular disease (age range 55-80, 57% women)  were asked to follow one of 3 dietary options:

• a Mediterranean diet with 
• extra-virgin olive oil
• or with  mixed nuts

• or a control diet with advice to reduce dietary fat.

The primary end point was rate of major cardiovascular events (myocardial infarction, stroke, or death from cardiovascular causes). The trial was stopped early after median follow-up 4.8 years.

What did they find? After adjusting for obvious bias, both Mediterranean diet groups had significantly better outcomes: hazard ratios compared to the control group  (109 clinical events)

- added oil: 0.70 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54 to 0.92) - 96 clinical events

- with nuts: 72 (95% CI, 0.54 to 0.96) - 83 clinical events

In other words, the relative risk of serious cardiovascular disease was reduced by one third by following a calorie unrestricted Mediterranean diet vs. a low fat diet. The absolute risk reduction was 3 fewer clinical events for every 1000 patient years of treatment ie ~3 fewer clinical events for every 200 patients following the Mediterranean diet option for 5 years. There were 2-3 future strokes per 1000 patient years of treatment.

Considering the impact of these preventable strokes alone, using UK data as an example, that decrease of 2-3 strokes per 1000 patient years of treatment would represent ~300-450 fewer strokes per year at a saving in direct and indirect health costs, and further societal annual costs of ~£16–25m  [€18-28m].

Of note, patients were supported during the study by regular educational prompts, as well as some free food supplements.

These were clearly patients at high risk from cardiovasular disease either from:

• type 2 diabetes mellitus or 
• at least three of 
• smoking
• hypertension
• raised bad (LDL) cholesterol 
• low good (HDL) cholesterol
• overweight or obesity
• family history of premature coronary heart disease

The authors themselves raise the obvious questions whether people not living in a Mediterranean and/or at lower cardiovascular risk would receive similar benefit.

Their results at least however 'support the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease' in patients already at high risk: an important message for policy makers, health professionals, and at least those with the above risk factors for serious vascular events.

See the research paper 

Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J et al: the PREDIMED Study Investigators. Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet. N Engl J Med. 2013 Feb 25. [Epub ahead of print]

New treatment targets in the microcirculation

A joint symposium organized by the British Pharmacological Society and the British Microcirculation Society on 'New pharmacological targets in the microcirculation' will take place from 9.30am - 12.30pm on Thursday 19th December 2013.

This is one of the 10 symposia taking planned for Pharmacology 2013 - the next BPS annual winter meeting, to be held Tuesday 17th - Thursday 19th December, 2013  at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.

The following 5 themes will be addressed during the symposium:

- microcirculation pharmacology and therapeutic targets by Professor Chris Garland, University of Oxford, UK;

- leukocyte trafficking through microvessels: emergence of novel anti-inflammatory therapeutic avenues by Professor Sussan Nourshargh, Queen Mary University of London

- new approaches for modulating retinal angiogenesis by Professor Alan Stitt, Queen’s University Belfast, UK;

- pharmacological approaches for reducing risk of microvascular stroke

syndromes by Professor Donald Singer, University of Warwick, UK

- microvascular targets in oncology by Professor Kristian Pietras, University of Lund, Sweden.

Abstracts are welcome for Pharmacology 2013 on this microcirculation theme, in addition to the wide range of themes relevant to the spectrum of pharmacology from bench to bedside, disease prevention and beyond.

Pharmacology 2013 (formerly the BPS Winter Meeting) attracts around 800 scientists each year, from throughour the UK, from across Europe and from overseas. The meeting includes a selection of topical symposia, plenary lectures, free oral communications and poster sessions which cover the many aspects of pharmacology from basic to clinical science.

Abstracts and registration for Pharmacology 2013 will open in early Autumn 2013.

Microcirculation symposium programme - Thursday 19th December, 2013

Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov

@HealthMed The RSC is currently running a new version by Adrien Mitchell of Pushkin's Boris Godunov - in which Godunov is accused of the murder of the young epileptic son of former Tsar Ivan the Terrible, following which he (Godunov) allows himself to be 'persuaded' to became the new Tsar. 

Tsar of Russia Boris Godunov is said to have died in mid-April 1605 after a lengthy illness, the cause of death attributed to a stroke. 

Hippocrates is considered to have been the earliest to describe stroke - then called apoplexy [for Gk for to strike down/incapacitate]. As insight into Roman views on the cause of apoplexy, the Latin translation (sideratio) indicates a disease caused by a constellation.  It wasn't until several decades after Godunov's death that Swiss pharmacologist and pathologist Johann Jakob Wepfer linked apoplexy both to bleeding within the brain and to blockage of a blood vessel in the brain. His work on strokes was published in 1658 as Historiae apoplecticorum. 

Depicted as well-fed, Godunov by the age of 54 would have been at risk of hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidaemia. Other causes of apoplexy could have included a primary or secondary cerebral tumour, indolent brain infection/abscess such as tuberculosis, or indeed a ruptured congenital vascular anomaly. Poisoning was of course then an occupational hazard. Slow onset heavy metal or other toxins could have contributed to his reported long terminal illness.

Apoplexy has attracted fascination from historical reports (e.g. from Petrarch to Copernicus and Catherine the Great, surgeon John Hunter's suspected caused of death - reportedly during a meeting with the board of management, and President Woodrow Wilson) to fictional references - often with a hint of retribution (e.g. Villefort's father in the Count of Monte Cristo, Rip van Winkle's wife ... ). 

For more on general aspects of apoplexy, see History of Stroke by Maurizio Paciaroni and Julien Bogousslavsky.