This Week in BMJ | Editor's Choice | Press releases

557 Prophylaxis after occupational exposure to HIV
Philippa Easterbrook, Giuseppe Ippolito

558 Why the BMJ needs your data
Richard Smith

559 Drug misusers: whose business is it?
Michael Farrell, Claire Gerada

560 Academia: the view from below
Bill Chaudhry, Paul Winyard, Catherine Cale

561 Treating medically unexplained physical symptoms
Richard Mayou, Michael Sharpe

562 Death of Diana, Princess of Wales
Richard Smith

563 Women sterilised without consent in Sweden
Research malpractice at Karolinska Institute
Florida wins award from tobacco companies
Cot deaths in Britain rise again
Reports from Beijing's world conference on tobacco or health
Thrombolysis in strokes carries large risk
US admits more radiation experiments
NHS plans for winter pressures
Canadian doctors' leader inaugurated
Revamp of AIDS testing in Hungary
NHS needs sense of direction
Palestinian shackled in Israel hospital
UK spends less than average on health care

569 Duration of cognitive dysfunction after concussion, and cognitive dysfunction as a risk factor: a population study of young men
Thomas W Teasdale, Aase Engberg

572 Responses of consecutive patients to reassurance after gastroscopy: results of self administered questionnaire survey
M P Lucock, S Morley, C White, M D Peake

576 A systematic review of compression treatment for venous leg ulcers
Alison Fletcher, Nicky Cullum, Trevor A Sheldon

580 The beefburger injury: a retrospective survey
V S Jigjinni, J Stevenson, A F S Flemming

581 Validation of a regional drug misuse database: implications for policy and surveillance of problem drug use in the UK
Matthew Hickman, Heather Sutcliffe, Arun Sondhi, Gerry V Stimson

582 A cost effective, community based heart health promotion project in England: prospective comparative study
Tony Baxter, Philip Milner, Keith Wilson, Mike Leaf, Jon Nicholl, Jenny Freeman, Nicola Cooper

586 Recent advances: General surgery
Carlos U Corvera, Kimberly S Kirkwood

590 ABC of mental health: Mental health and the law
Ann Barker

593 Clinical academic medicine: a Socratic dialogue
D G Grahame-Smith

596 How to read a paper: Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses)
Trisha Greenhalgh

600 Statistics notes: Trials randomised in clusters
J Martin Bland, Sally M Kerry

601 General practitioners' attitudes towards treatment of opiate misusers
E van Teijlingen and M Porter; J Bury and J Sherval; A Preston and C Campion-Smith; H Lester and C Bradley; J R Mason

602 Treatment of opiate dependent drug misusers
A Byrne; A M Daniels; J H McCarthy

603 Performing hysterectomy in low income women may be easier than educating them
J P Bunker

604 Investigation of left ventricular dysfunction in acute dyspnoea
P Crawford and A Hendry; A Davie and J McMurray; W Bagg and others; N D Gillespie and others

605 Specialised transfer teams can operate effectively from district general hospitals
K J Bannell and others

605 Common criteria for providing powered wheelchairs should be agreed by wheelchair service centres
C W Roy

606 Stroke family care workers
A F Bisset and R Chesson; P Pound and others; M A Chamberlain and others; R Trigg and V Wood; M Dennis and others

608 Screening for HIV infection should be part of routine antenatal screening
B Essex

608 Careers in academic medicine
R Baker and A Ustianowski; E J Dunstan; J Shepherd

609 Concordance of phenprocoumon dose in married couples
F Kamali and others; T W van Haeften

609 Ice cream headache
J W Sleigh; M Harries

610 J R J Cameron, M N Cox, J M Fullerton, D N John, J G Mason, K A Misch, R H Ramsay, M Roll, J A Ross, S O Sharma, L B Strang, D H Targett

Soundings

612 Be prepared Trisha Greenhalgh

612 The future of medical education in South Africa
Raymond Hoffenberg

Drug misuse: GPs' pivotal role
Robert Scott

Dodgy doctors: your time is up
Andrew Pickersgill

615 Women and Childbirth in the Twentieth Century
A Susan Williams
Susan Bewley

Health Care Law
Jonathan Montgomery
Vivienne Harpwood

616

Editor's choice

Not for the timid

Even these critics of the British scene would probably agree that academic medicine in South Africa faces particular problems - and Raymond Hoffenburg outlines some of them in his personal view (p 612). His hopes for the future rest on the quality of the teachers and the beleaguered research workers and "a cadre of first class administrators."

Another debate that started a few weeks ago and continues in this issue is over who manages drug misusers. In his personal view Robert Scott describes how he argued in a debate at a postgraduate meeting of psychiatrists that psychiatrists should have nothing to do with managing drug addiction and should leave it all to general practitioners (p 613). He lost that debate, and probably loses it again in the pages of the BMJ - not least because Michael Farrell, a psychiatrist, and Claire Gerada, a general practitioner, argue in their editorial that psychiatrists have their place in treating mental illness in misusers, just as hepatologists have a place in treating their hepatitis C (p 559). Nevertheless, several correspondents, from all over Britain, support Scott's belief that general practitioners are increasingly managing drug misusers and want further training and support to enable them to do so (p 601).

All over Britain too doctors are being recruited to help run the General Medical Council's new performance review procedures - and some are even undergoing the procedure itself in pilot trials. One such volunteer was Andrew Pickersgill, who describes the experience on p 614. Though clearly stressful, he found the experience useful, though "I spent many hours explaining that it was only an exercise and that I was not going to be struck off." Something else that's clearly not for the timid.