Religious doctors may allow their faith to influence care of terminally ill - I should hope so! . . .

Some days, or weeks even, I don't seem to do, hear or see anything that I particularly want to blog about but today, I seem to be spoilt for choice. To mention just a few of the items that I thought I might comment on; we have the 100th birthday celebrations of Mother Teresa, the memorial of the Passionist Priest, Blessed Dominic of the Mother of God, the birth of David and Samantha Cameron's daughter, and even the fantastic result in the Spurs Champions League match last night!

But, no, what caught my attention primarily was an item on the BBC News website about the possible influence of faith on doctors in their care of the terminally ill. I would have expected it to be a factor and was surprised that it should be considered 'news' or a surprise to many people.

"Doctors with religious beliefs are less likely to take decisions which could hasten the death of those who are terminally ill . . ." according to a study of nearly 4,000 doctors by London University. Well, good for them!

The article contains some interesting statistics too such as;

"More than 12% of the doctors surveyed described themselves as very or extremely religious, compared with just over 6% of the UK general population . . . However one in five described themselves as very or extremely non-religious, slightly higher than the general population."

"Specialists in the care of the elderly were more likely to be Hindu or Muslim than other doctors, while palliative care doctors were slightly more likely to be white and Christian."

An interesting article and worth a further look here.

'Noises Off ' and Noses on ....

We've had a lot of social events in the last week - a very enjoyable dinner at the local Golf Club in support of our Parish Golf Day to raise funds for our parish school's new building; a company dinner at a local hotel and a trip to the theatre. This last is the 'Noises Off' referred to in the title of this post.

This was an hilarious farce which we went to on a 'works' outing' organised by Atkins. We went with friends and arrived early enough to have a delicious Italian meal before the performance in a nearby restaurant. As I said, the play was side-splitting - I really felt as if my sides were splitting! We all said we hadn't laughed so much and for so long for a very long time. In fact I was reduced to tears, and I wasn't the only one.

As for 'Noses on' I got a clean bill of health from the 'chest man' at our local hospital. He told me I had a 'good pair of lungs'. I must say I had never doubted this for a minute! He suggested my persistent cough may well be caused by 'post-nasal drip' (they've got names for everything, haven't they??) which means that I'm probably allergic to something common like house dust - no chance of eliminating that then!!!

Not standing much chance of eliminating the cause, it just leaves treating the symptoms and I think I'd rather put up with a cough than start spraying things up my nose every day from now on!

I'm just glad my nose is not on the scale of the little fellow pictured above - just think of the 'post-nasal drip' he could suffer from - more like a 'post-nasal deluge'!