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QIMR Berghofer researchers have created functioning miniature human skeletal muscle – a move that will accelerate research into muscle disease and treatments. The bio-engineered one millimetre by 0.5 millimetre skeletal muscles flex and move like muscles in the body and grow and strengthen with exercise.

Hospitalised patients were more likely to die when registered nurse (RN) staffing levels fell below the ward average, according to a retrospective analysis of data from a large acute care hospital. Each day spent in an RN-understaffed ward over a 3-year period conferred a 3% rise in mortality risk, whereas each additional hour of care provided by an RN was associated with a 3% reduction in the chances of dying, the study found.

Every Christmas The BMJ publishes articles on topics in the left field of research, answering questions that readers had never even thought of. Over the years The BMJ has looked at such vital topics as the side effects of sword-swallowing, the most popular type of chocolate eaten in hospitals, and whether skipping your "beauty sleep" actually makes a difference.

Many people believe doctors go through life with a stethoscope in one hand and a golf club in the other. So this year, researchers from the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy decided to find out whether the stereotype of golf-playing doctors is actually true, and if so, which doctors make the best golfers.

CKN recently spoke with Dr Tony Rahman, Director of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at The Prince Charles Hospital, and heard about some of the innovative programs being run by his team.

Simple tips to curb excess eating and drinking and encourage physical activity over Christmas can help stop people piling on the kilos, finds a trial in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. 

Surrounded by cane fields, Babinda is a small sugar town located on the Bruce Highway around 60 kilometres south of Cairns. Up until now its claim to fame has been as the wettest town in Australia (with an astonishing 4.3m of rain per year). Now it can proudly say that one of its own has been awarded with the prestigious title of “Rural Doctor of the Year Award” for 2018.

Whether it’s during natural disasters, or over the summer festive season, CKN is always open.

CKN is designed to remain operational 24 x 7 through the worst of conditions – bushfires, cyclones, storms and floods. Even if QHEPS is temporarily unavailable at your hospital, or you aren’t able to make it in to work, wherever you have internet or mobile data coverage, you will also have access to CKN’s clinical information.

For health professionals in low and middle income countries independent, evidence-based, therapeutic information, is often not available or prohibitively expensive. One of CKN’s most widely used resources, Therapeutic Guidelines, is helping give back to countries throughout the region with their Therapeutic Guidelines Developing Countries Program.

Energy, calmness, empathy, maturity and intellectual curiosity may be protective, while impulsivity may harm the chances of longevity. Personality traits evident as early as the teenage years may be linked to a heightened or lessened risk of death around 50 years later, suggests observational research of ‘baby boomers’. 

How can a doctor predict the treatment outcome of an individual patient? Traditionally, the effectiveness of medical treatments is studied by randomised trials where patients are randomly divided into two groups: one of the groups is given treatment, and the other a placebo. However is this really the only reliable way to evaluate treatment effectiveness, or could something be done differently? How can the effectiveness of a treatment method be evaluated in practice? Could some patients benefit from a treatment that does not cause a response in others?