Deborah Robertson

Polypharmacy and multimorbidity

This Canadian review paper by Potempski and Bilimoria (2021) aimed to highlight the common phenomenon of polypharmacy in the light of the COVID-19 global pandemic. They begin by pointing out that...

Treatment advances in mental health

This month we are going to look at some interesting and applicable advances in the area of treatment of bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. Some new research is examined and implications...

Tackling vaccination concerns

The first thing I wanted to tell you in this editorial was that I have had my first vaccine! Like many million others I was delighted to get the call and I feel relief and privilege to have received...

Antimicrobial prescribing in SARS-CoV-2

In this article by Stevens et al (2020) we start to see some early evidence looking at the rate and spectrum of antibiotic prescribing being collected in a single centre study.

Prescribing issues in the COVID-19 pandemic

As we know as prescribers, antibiotic stewardship and appropriate prescribing of antibiotic therapy to reduce this incidence of resistance is an often-focussed field of research (Zhu et al, 2021). In...

Working through the pandemic

Managing diabetes care in the COVID-19 pandemic

This piece of original research, carried out in May 2020 in China, used a questionnaire method to gather information about diabetic patients as a measure to determine recruitment before conducting a...

Remote healthcare in the COVID-19 pandemic

This editorial published online in the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics near the beginning of the pandemic looked at issues and aspects to consider when conducting what they term...

Care continues to shine in difficult times

This has been a truly exceptional year for the world, the UK, the NHS and us as healthcare professionals. For me 2020 has been a true year of ups and downs and I mean this personally and...

COVID-19, coagulopathy and clotting abnormalities

This review article from Tokyo in Japan was published in March 2020 and outlined what was being seen by clinicians dealing with ill patients in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (Iba et al,...

End-of-life care in a global pandemic

This editorial considers how end-of-life decision making has been impacted by the SARS-COVID-19 pandemic (Pattison, 2020). They state that the ‘unprecedented and unfolding global has forced healthcare...

Adapting to the new normal

As I write this editorial it is the beginning of a new academic year and preparations are almost complete for the new intake of students across the wide range of healthcare-related programmes, both...

Prescribing in end of life care

Two publications reviewed look at the prescribing of anticipatory medications at the end of life..

Opioid drugs: a high risk prescribing area?

Richards et al (2020) start this paper by looking at the current picture of prescribing of opioids in a primary care setting. They acknowledge that research shows that an increase in opioid...