Pharmacy Daily | Dispensary Corner 19 Apr 13

An extremely ill cancer patient in France has saved the life of an ambulance driver, who had a heart attack while driving him to hospital. According to a BBC report, 60-year-old Christian Nayet said he would drive the ambulance after the paramedic, Jean- Francois Pina, said he had pins and needles in his fingers. Nayet was being taken in for a scan at a hospital in Lille, but once he took the wheel he rushed Pina to a closer hospital in the adjacent town of Lens. “We drove fast,” Nayet said. “I couldn’t find the siren but I managed to turn the lights on and told him to put his arm out the window to signal to the cars to let us pass,” he added. The ambulance driver was operated on for a coronary occlusion within ten minutes of arriving at the hospital. The report says another ambulance was found later to take Mr Nayet to his scan. The price of fame... An intriguing Australian study published this week in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine has found that being a celebrity may be harmful to your health. Researchers from the University of NSW and the University of Qld studied 1000 obituaries published in the New York Times between 2009 and 2001. The data showed that people who perform in the public eye such as actors, singers, musicians and sportspeople died younger than people in other professions, at an average age of 77. Artists, composers and writers died at 79 while academics, including economists and historians, lived until 82. Politicians and businesspeople lived slightly longer, dying at an average age of 83. The study also found that performers were more likely to die of cancer - particularly tumours in the lungs.

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