Atoms
Can you really puff this, Magritte? I expect (well, at least hope) you’re all familiar with the wonderful, understated Moderna Museet in Stockholm, a gallery that overlooks Djurgården to the East, Södermalm to the South, each just a stone’s throw from the Skeppsholmen jetty above which the collection sits and, in front of which the Baltic archipelago ferries limber up. I visit so often that my membership card is battered, but even those of you who aren’t in Östermalm as often will feel a tingle of familiarity at the mention of the Surrealistic exhibition on the ground floor where Salvador, Jean and Pablo mingle.1 Now that’s established, you’ll be prepared for the next small step—a mere skip to the notion that opening one’s mind—just allowing it to liberate itself from the fetters that is routine thinking and just as our authors have done this month, is...
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Gender-affirming hormone treatment for young people with gender dysphoria: where do we go from here?
Child and adolescent gender medicine is currently one of the most heatedly debated fields in medicine. The recent Cass Review,1 underpinned by a comprehensive research programme from the University of York, has corroborated growing worldwide concern regarding the use of puberty blockers (PBs) and gender-affirming hormone treatment (GAHT) for young people with gender dysphoria (GD). The review has contributed to an important professional debate about the future of these treatments—a debate which, at times, has been marred by serious misrepresentations of Cass’s processes, findings and recommendations.2–4 Given the growing debate, the newest systematic review and meta-analysis (SR/MA)5 evaluating psychosocial and physical outcomes of GAHT for young people (under 26 years of age) with GD is a welcome and important addition to the literature. Researchers from the department of health research at McMaster University followed the highest methodological standards for...
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Non-therapeutic circumcision of boys: a family matter
Non-therapeutic circumcision of boys (‘circumcision’) is legitimised by consent from those with parental responsibility for the child. As common law decisions accumulate, both the questions put to the family court and the resulting judgements reveal how difficult it can be to determine where the individual child’s interests lie, amidst the factual complexities of family life, in turn, where boys and their parents and their doctors stand. The early case of Re J1 settled the issue of who is required to consent on behalf of the boy, prior to circumcision. It concerned the 5-year-old son of a ‘non-practising Christian’ mother and a Muslim father who ‘....did not actively observe many tenets of his faith’. J, therefore, had a mixed heritage and essentially, a secular lifestyle. The family court found that he did not have ‘a settled religious faith’. Father sought a court order that his son should be...
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Damp and mouldy home: impact on lung health in childhood
Within every paediatric respiratory and general paediatric clinic there will be a number of children and families who are exposed to sub-standard environments within their homes. This may be impacting on their health and in particular, respiratory health. As clinicians it is important that we are aware of the risks to health, how to address it and act as advocates for patients. This review walks through from the health impacts to the way we can advocate and support patients and families.
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