Lab Rat or Button Monkey?

With headlines like this, it’s no wonder that the NHS is in trouble.  Anyone could see that PFI was always going to be costly, the company involved has to make a profit on the whole thing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6279889.stm

It seems that an existing treatment, dichloroacetate, might be helpful in cancer treatment. The problem seems to be patents, or in this case a lack of. As the dichloroacetate doesn’t have a patent, it seems drug companies are reluctant to invest in research to get it ready for the market e.g. phase I, II, III [...]

I attended a lecture at University of Westminster dealing with micro array technology with regards to Chemical Pathology in 1999 or 2000. At the time it seemed very promising. The lecture was performed by an academic but the underlying technology implementation was from Roche. It seems that this approach was subsequently mothballed. At the time, [...]

Though this is at a very low level, nice little read.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6266925.stm
As is this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6263029.stm

Every now and again, you come across something that scares you, REALLY scares you. I found this a while ago on a respected law discussion site, groklaw.net. It from a foundation that works to revoke inappropriate patents e.g. where prior art exists. The following link concerns pathology.
http://www.pubpat.org/LabCorp_Position_Statement.htm

The BBC site can often be a good source of news about the issues affecting the NHS. It can be accessed via this link or by pasting this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/default.stm

This is always a good source of info. It is meant for patient use, but is equally good for trainees and general members of staff and can be found here. Or by pasting this:
http://www.labtestsonline.org/index.html

The Christmas  drop in workload is well and truly over.  This week has been really busy.  No surprise that the workload has returned,  you just hope that it might be delayed for just a bit longer.  It didn’t help that the lamp on out high throughput analyser required changing in the afternoon.  A process that [...]

With the oncoming need for CPD for state registration, how do you get people motivated in actually doing CPD? CPD materials are readily available at my workplace, in electronic and paper formats, but still seem not to be used.
Should the emphasis be on the employer to push people to do it? I feel [...]

Working in a pathology department in the NHS, do you see yourself as a Lab Rat or a Button Monkey?