Although evidence-based medicine has undoubtedly been a force for good and has transformed clinical practice for the better, it has also been responsible for a subtle change in power dynamics when it comes to clinical policymaking.

There’s been increasing attention on the little known organism Mycoplasma genitalium as an emerging cause of sexually transmitted conditions in women and men.

Our professional identities play out in tangible ways such as our language, clothes and everyday behaviour. Our identity is the external representation of our inner feelings, beliefs, experiences and values. We all have a number of identities – personal, professional, social which reflect our day to day experiences and the environments within which we operate.

So, we’ve heard about all this recent “exciting” cardiovascular outcome data in type 2 diabetes, but is there a real tangible benefit to our own patients outside of a clinical trial setting? How should we be incorporating it into our own clinical practice?

Have you ever spoken to someone and thought “OMG! I would be depressed too if I were in their shoes”? Of course you have! But have you ever met someone who despite all the bad luck and set backs has remained optimistic and been able to make the best out of what would be for others an impossible and unbearable situation?

Two of the five available PPIs rank in the top five medicines by prescription volume in the latest statistics from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for prescriptions in 2016–17 and four of the five available PPIs are among the top 30 medicines.

This KISS covers the aetiology, diagnosis and symptomatic management of acute rhinosinusitis, including advice on antibiotic choices, when indicated.

So much medical focus is on the deficits in people that those of us who work within the medical model tend to forget to look for people’s strengths. We may eventually even fail to see and value our own strengths as they become, in our own minds, just things that everybody has.

Susan is newly pregnant. She had some thyroid tests done earlier this year and was diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroidism. Her TSH was 6 mIU/ml with a normal thyroxine and negative anti thyroid antibodies. She has read in a forum online that she needs to be treated with thyroxine but she is worried about taking medication when pregnant. What do you advise her?

This month has seen the publication of new European Hypertension Guidelines 2018 produced by the European Societies of Hypertension and Cardiology.