Top story across the papers and Pulse today, general practice faces a retirement crisis with a third of GPs set to retire in the next five years, as senior doctors increasingly look to leave the NHS or emigrate.
The survey of almost 16,000 GPs by the BMA highlights the ‘absurd’ nature of politician’s promises to recruit more GPs without tackling the problem of out-of-control workload, the GPC has said.
Divorcees have more heart attacks, the BBC reports, as a study of almost 16,000 cases proposed that chronic stress linked with divorce can have a long term impact on health – even controlling for other factors like sudden loss of income.
The study by researchers at Duke university in the US found women were most at risk with once-divorced women being 24% more likely to have a heart attack than those that remained married, and multiply divorced women having a 77% increased risk.
There was a more modest increase in men, of 10% and 30% respectively, but Professor Jeremy Pearson, from the British Heart Foundation, commented: ‘The results are not definitive so further evidence would be needed before divorce could be considered a significant risk factor for causing a heart attack.’
The Independent reports there are yet more reasons to steer away from sun beds as a dermatological expert has warned they can harbour faecal bacteria and viruses associated with sexually transmitted infections.
Speaking to Yahoo health, Dermatologist and associate professor of dermatology at the Mayo Clinic, Dr Dawn Marie Davis, said the heat of the beds was not sufficient to sterilise them completely and could even bread more resistant bacteria.
Dr Davis added: ‘Then if you sweat, that only adds to the bacteria or virus’s ability to grow, and then if you have a nick or cut in your skin, which is very common, then you’re much more likely to acquire the infection.’
