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Will A Tax On Breast Implants In The UK Drive People Away?

The British HM Revenue and Customs is planning to impose a tax on cosmetic surgeries by slapping VAT on any artificial enhancements and procedures. According to the new guidelines by the department responsible for collecting UK’s taxes, doctors performing more invasive procedures will have to register for VAT and pass the charge on to their patients. The guidelines suggest that patients having such cosmetic procedures will have to pay the tax unless they can persuade the doctor that the operation is being carried out for “therapeutic” reasons. Although the move is being considered to help plug the deficit in Britain’s public finances, but Fazel Fatah, president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), said that this could harm many patients.
Source: dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_boob-tax-to-increase-cost-of-cosmetic-surgery-by-20-per-cent_1599777

The government in the UK seeks to hasten the movement of cosmetic surgery business out of the country it seems. That will likely be the effect of the planned extension of the VAT tax to cosmetic surgery. It is already less expensive for British citizens to leave the country for their cosmetic surgery. The care in most cases is not equivalent. The reason to consider it just got 20% more persuasive however. That is a huge tax!

Here in the US, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*

Why The French Don’t Go To The Gym

gettinbigwithrivaroxaban 300x187 Work out in a Gym? The French say Sacre Bleu!Like their counterparts in other first-world countries, French people know about the health benefits of exercise. And French culture has emphasized, even worshipped, good looks (which these days translates to “fit and trim.”)

So it’s surprising that the French avoid fitness centers as vigorously as factory-produced croissants. But they do.

According to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, just 5.4 percent of French people were members of a fitness club in 2008. That’s substantially less than their counterparts in Italy (9.5 percent), the UK (11.9 percent), and Spain (16.6 percent).

“It appears that more people are sitting in cafes smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee than working out … the French don’t see fitness as a lifestyle,” American-born fitness consultant Fred Hoffman told MSNBC. Hoffman has lived in Paris for two decades. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*

Embrace Life With Your Seatbelt

Watch this gorgeous video from the UK promoting seatbelt use. And buckle up!

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*

Wait Times For Medical Care: How The US Actually Measures Up

Yesterday, I borrowed liberally from Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You Will Go” to describe the “weirdish, wild space” – The Waiting Place – in which we now find health reform.

This got me thinking about The Waiting Place in a different context: the time it takes to get an appointment with a physician. Anyone one of us who has had to wait weeks, or even months, for an appointment would agree that The Waiting Place is, as Dr. Seuss described it, a “most useless place” to be.

Critics of the pending health reform bills, like Conservatives for Patient Rights argue that they will lead to longer wait times for appointments. Their argument being that “government-run” health care, as exists in Canada or the United Kingdom, has been demonstrated to result in long waits for medical appointments.

I would dispute the premise that the reforms being considered by Congress are akin to the systems in place in Canada or the United Kingdom. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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