88% Hate Courier Initial CityLink Heres An Example of Why

Had a parcel to send next day so I booked a courier online. My mistake was that I chose Initial City Link. According to their website "City Link has been successfully delivering documents, parcels, pallets and freight throughout the world since 1969"....I guess they don't mention the unsuccessful ones.

On the first day, they never showed up. I rang, driver was new apparently. Rebooked, but on the second collection day they failed to turn up again. No explanation. After two failed pick ups rang HQ on the 3rd day. Then they claimed they had in fact picked up the parcel (which was still sitting on my desk btw). Turns out they picked up the wrong parcel from an unknown 3rd party address and tried to deliver the wrong parcel on my behalf. Total chaos. Cancelled. They refused to refund. What a great british company.

More examples are here http://amplicate.com/hate/citylink

The Science Behind Getting Published Finally Explained

Someone finally explained the steps required to get a peer reviewed publication. Here it is in this simple illustration

Dragon Naturally Speaking 11...Comical Results

I recently purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking 11, actually it was free with the excellent Sony  ICD-PX312D Voice recorder. This recorder manages to record high quality mono (and stereo with mic) audio files of pretty much unlimited length for only about £40. The idea was the transcribe the patient videos being collected for CancerStories.Info. After 5 minutes of training, it seemed to be ready so I loaded up the file and here is the slightly comical result:

We can meet a carries a lead character about her experience with a diagnosis having failures of breast cancer anaesthesiology more was the first thing that have talking about going back to when you were always the first thing, you are the parent company cellular and then fill in any and all over and Octavia Kane and the people are having parallel anyhow: holiday and still the elevator travellers visiting wealthy and a full scale the skill on an island has an holiday areas and comeback this layout 10 years in time you have I live a check on the same as that the planning a loud reality of a ending because the plentiful supply of oversight and I'm glad you and any ill (and will save you are the best that they can exercise is a very visible in a field in his systems and in the theatre will have to make you and your town on the edge and allow anything like the EP is where his danger is that there is an because, in time and value them there were in fact I do them in a massive push to techno and you can say definitely times and finally… And now

I can promise this bears no resemblance to the original, except for the words "breast cancer".I guess more "training" is needed!

Small and Beautiful! Acer K11 Projector...pico with style

Came across with tiny 10cm x 10cm pico projector on sale for about £200. I didn't expect too much but wow this really performs. At 200 lumens its plenty bright enough for powerpoint and also for movies etc. I have at old Runko CRT that is about 100x heavier but no clearer. The projector can be carried in a laptop bag and allows inputs direct from sd card, hdmi and d-sub. Impressive and highly recommended!

Local Expert Patient Video Stories

I have some exciting news. Following on from the clear success of national initiatives like the NHS expert patient programme and the website healthtalkonline, we will soon be launching our own collection of patient narratives on video. These will be designed for the benefit of our own new patients who want to see previous stories. They will be available on DVD loan or (hopefully) on the web. The first patient has kindly agreed to be recorded and footage taken.

We hope to launch this exciting resource in the new year

Rate of Depression in Long-term Cancer Survivors: high or low or the same?

We have started working on this interesting question, and we already have a provisional answer which we aim to present at IPOS11 (Turkey). The question is as follows: is the prevalence rate of depression different in long-term cancer survivors cf the general population?


Its has taken some time to gather all the studies, namely 17. The answer depends on the comparison population and the time from cancer. But from the evidence so far I can reveal that the rate of depression in long term cancer survivors (5+ years) looks no different to the general population, including those in primary care.

The implication is that rates of depression gradually reduce with time although it is true that some will still be affected so its best not to ignor depression even in the long-term. The fact that many people do well is, of course, good news. We hope to present this formally very soon.

Top 100 People in Psychiatry....by research success

Research success can be measured by various research metrics, most notably citations, publications and H-index. Using these measures from Web of Science, I have just had help to compile the top 100 most cited people in psychiatry (and psychology). One question I have been asked is how much work is required to make it into the top 100 list?

Looking crudely at the number of peer reviewed publications, the ave number for a person in the top100 is 456!

A more sophisticated analysis would be by the H-index. So, to break into the top 100 you would need a H-index of about 60+; thats 60 papers each attracting at least 60 cites. To break into the top 10 you need a H-index of around 100. Thats 100 papers with 100 cites each. I perhaps have one. Thats 99 more to go then?!

The provisional list of the Top100 most highly cited scientists working in psychiatry is here:

 

http://www.slideshare.net/ajmitchell/top-100-most-cited-people-in-psychiatry-jan-2011

aka Top100 psychiatrists worldwide