UK Dr Anna Chellamuthu, GP and Lightning Process practitioner, and her article in a GP journal

Trial By Error by David Tuller British GP Journal Retracts "Opinion" About Lightning Process Written By LP Practitioner

quote:
This week, a journal under the umbrella of the British Journal of General Practice published–and a day later unpublished–a laudatory piece about the Lightning Process from a Lightning Process practitioner. The author, Anna Chellamuthu, is also a GP at Royal Cornwall Hospital. She wrote that the controversial program combining neurolinguistic program, osteopathy and life-coaching cured her daughter of ME/CFS and inspired her to train in the technique herself.

 

The British Journal of General Practice RetweetedBJGP Open Journal@BJGPOpen·Mar 1 Opportunity | Editorial Board

BJGP Open is recruiting new Editorial Board members! Applications from those with a social science, statistics, or medical ethics background particularly encouraged

Find out more: https://jobs.rcgp.org.uk/job-detail...-board-for-bjgp-open/?porder=Salaried+GP&ix=4

@HDambhaMiller @ChrisRMWilcox260 views0:06 / 0:06

Oooooh I am thinking of so may on here who could influence matters...... come on folk, why not apply?

 

Interesting to compare the way people support their claims that NICE was biased.

Sometimes in a GP journal citing the Romanian Journal of Experimental Psychotherapy (or some such).

Sometimes in the Lancet citing a website thread from a patient organisation whose chairman (?) is a co-investigator on a multimillion pound MRC grant.

You pays your money and takes your choice I guess.
But it pays to read what you cited before citing!

 

Assuming this is referring to me, I'm just one of a number of committee members here.

 

It must have been your gravitas that misled me!

 

Let's compare and contrast the following angry Youtube vid from Phil Parker, he posted just after the guidelines were published:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj-JjqrOs6M

With what this journal published under the guise of 'GP's comment on the guidelines'.

Let's think for a moment about how much more devious the latter was, particularly where you note the similarity of material to what has come directly from the LP (and can be found in Phil Parker and other's articles). Was it written by a 'GP' now? or was it from the LP presented as from a GP instead of an LP coach?

I think that this has flagged a clear issue (given the editor's reply about 'declaring interests') where the old 'well I declared my interests' is really showing up how that is being used as a thin veil by the profession to excuse what is clearly not protecting either the profession or those who may be influenced by them from interests at all. It is not being taken seriously as an issue by the profession. Just put a line in somewhere and anything goes?

Maybe that really is the 'BIG debate' that the editor should be having on his new section - how did we get to this point where we justify anything with a one-liner. Do they, as a profession, realise how bad and big this is? Should vested interests be actually properly taken seriously as other sectors would properly tackle them - instead of all the excuses in the book claiming it is too hard being thrown about. Why can someone write something as an LP practitioner then masquerade it as 'GP comment' instead of being explicit about 'her hat she is wearing' (or indeed who really wrote most of it).

 

I've just read the comments on the following article around the release of the new guidelines in PULSE: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/c...ecommends-personalised-care-and-support-plan/

Not many of them interestingly and most are very different in level to what you see on some other articles (like how they solve their workload issue with different structures, which seem to get more coherent thoughts).

However the bottom 2 comments were interesting and seem to flag that maybe that is what is being prepped as the 'Battle Royale' between whether the RCGP should just produce its own guidelines and get rid of Nice type stuff (and then the comment after replying to this). Maybe I'm just being naive and those inside medicine would say these always pulled against each other anyway/this isn't 'news'.

Are we just pawns in what is really, as usual, all about politics, power and other issues that are nothing to do with patient health/treatment etc? sure these 'vehicles' by which things are done provide some cover for what be the real issues/reasons/agenda - how much do we think people 'believe' in the treatments rather than that is what patient's 'lot' should be?

 

It is interesting to read that column of comments.

I don't think RCGP can hope to compete with NICE. The power structure would not allow it.
But I think things are changing. I think GPs are beginning to realise that they are in an anachronistic and moribund branch of the profession. Much of it has been taken over by mega-employers. Job satisfaction is low because the idea of health centre based general practice is absurd. Care in the community is meaningless if there are no local facilities with pathology and radiology services on tap.

I was reminded of the piece in the Guardian this week about the police - a female deputy commissioner admitting that the police attracts men who wish to 'exert and coerce' vulnerable people (not very good English but there you are). The GPs making comments give the impression of also being men who wish to 'lecture and get shot of' vulnerable people. One wonders why these people went into medicine.

The other side of that coin is that a big proportion of those going in to medicine recently have been women, often from ethnic minority backgrounds maybe because their family cultures still respect the idea of caring professions. Although maybe things have moved on yet again.

The last comment sounded as if it might be echoing the response letter to Gerada's swan song piece in the Guardian pointing out that the decline of GP was largely due to people like Gerada herself. But I think the commenter here is just wanting to be worse than Gerada and perpetuate a power base in GP. It won't end well.

It all seems quite depressing but I think gradually it will sink in that if the NICE decision really had been biased it would have been possible to reverse it. The attempt to reverse it as the round table was met with hard evidence from the chairman - hard lack of evidence that is.

 

@bobbler reference to "pyramidy" resonates - the lightning process is a scam. It actually has advantages over other scams - they haven't been hauled off to jail and it's extremely lucrative ---- if they'd gone for another scam, pyramid scheme, drug dealing ---- then there'd be more risk of ending up in jail.

 

I don't follow much of this discussion - probably already clear.

I recall the local water company being prosecuted for the first time. They went to court said nothing of substance and were found guilty of polluting the waterway. They walked out of court and immediately briefed the media: "torrential rain --- led to overflow --- resulting in pollution". I was amazed at their attitude/stupidity. There is, as many of you will be aware, a defence i.e. where a water company discharges sewage owing to extreme rainfall. So if the defence applied then they should have said that in court ---- it was, in fact, dry and sunny ---- so there was no such defence.

I view the response of the medical professional bodies, to the NICE 2021 guideline, as contempt for the process. Their case was presented and considered by the NICE guideline panel and rejected. The NICE panel arrived at the right decision but in the wrong way - they dismissed PACE etc. as "low" and "very low" quality of evidence - correct. However, as others have highlighted, they didn't dismiss PACE etc. on the basis that these studies were unblinded and used subjective outcome criteria (correct reason), they dismissed them on the basis that they tested the wrong population - worrying.

People with ME/CFS have every right to point to the flawed guideline produced by NICE in 2007. However, that rejection (2007 guideline) is on the basis of objective assessment. The medical professional bodies are attacking NICE since they don't like the outcome - not on the basis of evidence. The medical professional bodies should bear in mind that evidence based guidelines are (ultimately) in everyone's interest and stop pandering to their (few) disgruntled members.

 

Ahem

The proper term is reverse funnel. Totally different from a pyramid shape.

 

You have a point. Reading the following article written by her seemed to certainly elicit some responses along those lines - excluding the ones who pavloved to the dog whistle of 'complex chronic patients being the reason for GPs being overworked' so much that they perhaps missed the bit about Macdonaldisation others seem to be objecting to:
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/p...ient-lists-should-be-pooled-across-pcns/#stru

I particularly enjoyed the TV doctor suggestion and wondered whether it related to any of them in particular..

 

Interesting. What a lot of unhappy bunnies!

I was also interested to see that Gerada is not flavour of the month with many colleagues.

Things worked quite well in the 1980s when we could send out nurses and do our own domiciliary visits from hospital units, as well as being able to cross-refer to colleagues so that care was integrated. All that got stopped because government wanted to reduce costs through the 'internal market' ha ha.

The GPs are in a mess because they are having to provide services that are much better provided by hospital departments with outreach. People with rheumatoid arthritis benefit from occupational therapists and nurses who are expert in rheumatoid arthritis, not the practice nurse who is an expert in taking blood pressures.

 

Retraction Watch mentions the retraction in its latest "Weekend reads"