Brain surgeons have developed a device the size of a grain of rice they hope could be a breakthrough in treating deadly brain cancers.

The 6mm-long gadget is implanted onto the surface of tumors, where it releases drugs into the masses to shrink or kill them.

When implanted into hard-to-treat brain tumors, the device can deliver multiple different cancer medications all at once. It was trialed on six patients with glioblastomas, the lethal brain cancer that killed President Joe Biden’s son, Joseph (Beau) Biden III, and Senator John McCain.

Most people with a glioblastoma only live 12 to 18 months on average after receiving the diagnosis and only about seven percent are still alive after five years. 

The device’s development is an answer to the challenge of finding a targeted way to treat cancer within the shortest window of time, given medications can typically only be tried one at a time, making finding the most effective treatment a lengthy process.

A challenge in developing targeted therapies for gliomas in the past is that it can be hard to test multiple combinations of drugs in tumors cells because doctors can only treat patients with one method at a time, representing a significant barrier to treating cancers like gliomas, which combination therapy has shown to be a promising treatment for.

However, this little device could be the solution to this challenge because it can safely administer up to 20 different cancer medications into extremely small areas of a patient’s brain tumor all at once during brain surgery.  

While the device was tested on patients with gliomas, researchers believe it could be used on multiple types of brain tumors, signaling a major breakthrough in cancer treatment. 

The five-year survival rate for adults with brain cancer ranges from 21 percent to 72 percent. 

Dr Pierpaolo Peruzzi, a neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women’s who performed the surgeries said: ‘In order to make the greatest impact on how we treat these tumors, we need to be able to understand, early on, which drug works best for any given patient.

‘The problem is that the tools that are currently available to answer this question are just not good enough. 

‘So we came up with the idea of making each patient their own lab, by using a device which can directly interrogate the living tumor and give us the information that we need.’

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston focused their efforts on a type of brain cancer called gliomas, which affects central nervous system cells that protect crucial neurons.

Specifically, researchers aimed to find the best possible way to treat an extremely aggressive form of glioma called glioblastoma, the lethal brain cancer that killed President Joe Biden’s son, Joseph (Beau) Biden III, and Senator John McCain.

Working with six patients, they inserted the tiny rod-shaped devices, which release miniscule doses of anti-tumor medications to highly concentrated areas, into their tumors. 

The intratumoral microdevices (IMD) are no longer than six millimeters, roughly the size of a grain of rice or a pencil tip.

Each one contains nine different medications, though it could hold up to 20. One of the drugs loaded into the devices was Temozolomide, a common chemotherapy drug that damages the DNA of cancer cells, preventing them from dividing and growing, eventually killing them off.

The rod-like devices were implanted as part of a standard procedure called resection to remove part or all of the cancerous mass. Dr Peruzzi identified the tumor in each patient and implanted two devices in each one approximately 10 to 15mm apart at the start of surgery.

The IMDs remained in the tumor while Dr Peruzzi worked on surgically removing the mass, giving the microdoses of medicine two to three hours to work within the tumor itself.

Dr Peruzzi said: ‘This is not in the lab, and not in a petri dish. It’s actually in real patients in real time, which gives us a whole new perspective on how these tumors respond to treatment.’

He then removed part of or the entire tumor and the IMDs, which had been infusing parts of the tumor with nine different medicines.

From there, scientists on the team froze the removed mass with the devices affixed to it and were able to look at how effective they were at delivering concentrated doses of the drugs to extremely specific regions of the tumors.

‘It’s important that we are able to do this in a way that best captures the features of each patient’s tumor and, at the same time, is the least disruptive of the standard of care,’ Dr Peruzzi said.

‘This makes our approach easy to integrate into patients’ treatment and allows its use in real life.’

Their main goals were to determine whether the devices could be safely implanted and whether this type of medical technology could be scaled for use to treat the 15,000 Americans who will be diagnosed with a glioblastoma this year. 

Gliomas typically occur in the brain but can sometimes afflict the spinal cord. About a third of all brain tumors are gliomas that originate from glial cells. These cells help support, connect, and protect central nervous system neurons. 

Gliomas don’t typically travel outside of the brain, but they are particularly dangerous because they can spread to other tissues within the brain. The most talked-about form of glioma is called glioblastoma.

Brain surgeons classify brain tumor growth on a scale from one to four, with grade 1 tumors growing slowly and appearing the least aggressive, while grade 4 tumors spread rapidly and aggressively. Glioblastomas are automatically grade 4 tumors upon first diagnosis.

The deaths of Beau Biden and Sen McCain in 2015 and 2018, respectively, were both due to highly aggressive glioblastomas. It took less than two years following diagnosis for the glioblastoma to kill Mr Biden, while Sen McCain died just over a year after his diagnosis.

Gliomas are notoriously difficult to treat and chemotherapy, surgery, and other interventions often come up short because of their tentacle-like ability to invade surrounding healthy brain tissue.

The next generation of cancer treatments will increasingly rely on a highly personalized approach that includes tools such as Dr Peruzzi’s to speed up the process toward finding the right medicine for each individual patient, optimizing their chance of survival.

Dr Peruzzi said: ‘The ability to bring the lab right to the patient unlocks so much potential in terms of the type of information we can gather, which is new and exciting territory for a disease that has very few options at present.’ 

Pat Bennett, 68, once rode horses as an equestrian, jogged daily and worked in human resources, until a rare illness robbed her of her ability to speak in 2012.

But help is on the way thanks to four baby-aspirin-sized sensors implanted in her brain, part of a clinical trial at Stanford University.

The chips have helped Bennett communicate her thoughts directly from her mind to a computer monitor at a record-breaking 62 words per minute — over three times faster than the technology’s previous best.

Cognitive scientists and medical researchers outside Stanford are impressed as well.

One, Professor Philip Sabes at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies brain-machine interfaces and co-founded Elon Musk’s Neuralink, described the new study as a ‘big breakthrough.’

‘The performance in this paper is already at a level which many people who cannot speak would want, if the device were ready,’ Sabes told MIT Technology Review earlier this year, as the new Stanford research was still clearing peer review.  

‘People are going to want this,’ Sabes said.

The news comes just a few months after the FDA granted approval to Musk’s Neuralink, permitting the company to initiate human trials for its own competing brain-chip implant technology.

The Stanford results also follow efforts by the United Nations’ agency for science and culture (UNESCO) to develop proposals for how to regulate brain chip technology, which they worry could be abused for ‘neurosurveillance’ or even ‘forced re-education,’ threatening human rights worldwide.

For Bennett, however, this emerging research has been closer to miraculous than dystopian.

Since 2012, Bennett has struggled with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the same disease that took the life of Sandra Bullock’s partner Bryan Randall earlier this summer and famed physicist Stephen Hawking in 2018.  

Over the course of 26 sessions, each lasting about four hours, Bennett worked with an artificial-intelligence algorithm, helping to train the AI in how to identify which brain activity corresponds to 39 key phonemes, or sounds, used in spoken English.

Via the brain-sensor tech, which the Stanford researchers call an intracortical brain-computer interface (iBCI), Bennett would attempt to effectively communicate approximately 260 to 480 sentences per training session to the AI. 

The sentences were selected randomly from a large data set, SWITCHBOARD, sourced from a collection of telephone conversations collected by calculator-maker Texas Instruments for language research back in the 1990s.

The casual sentences included examples like, ‘I left right in the middle of it,’ and ‘It’s only been that way in the last five years.’

During sessions where the sentence options were held down to a 50-word vocabulary, Bennett and the Stanford team working with her were able to get the AI translator’s error rate down to 9.1 percent. 

When the vocabulary limit was expanded to 125,000 words, closer to the total number of English words in common use, the iCBI’s intended-speech AI had an uptick in its translation errors. The rate rose to 23.8 percent.  

While that error-rate leaves something to be desired, the researchers believed improvements could continue with more training and a wider interface, more implants in other words, interacting between the brain and the iBCI’s AI.

Already, the algorithm’s speed decoding thoughts to speech has bested all previous models three times over.  

The Stanford group’s iBCI was able to move at 62 words per minute, 3.4 times faster than the prior record-holder, and closer than ever to the natural rate of human conversation, 160 words per minute.

‘We’ve shown you can decode intended speech by recording activity from a very small area on the brain’s surface,’ according to Dr. Jaimie Henderson, the surgeon who performed the delicate installation of the iBCI electrodes onto the surface of Bennett’s brain.

Bennett, herself, personally testified to her own experience with the breakthrough results, writing via email that, ‘These initial results have proven the concept, and eventually technology will catch up to make it easily accessible to people who cannot speak.’ 

‘For those who are nonverbal, this means they can stay connected to the bigger world,’ Bennett wrote in an email supplied by Stanford, ‘perhaps continue to work, maintain friends and family relationships.’

Bennett had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease, over a decade ago.

ALS attacks the neurons in the body’s central nervous system that control movement, but Bennett’s own experience with the ailment was a particularly rare variety of the disease.

‘When you think of ALS, you think of arm and leg impact,’ Bennett said. ‘But in a group of ALS patients, it begins with speech difficulties. I am unable to speak.’

Dr. Henderson and his co-authors published the results of their work with Bennett in Nature this Wednesday.

•  For those aged 75-90 sex didn’t have to be all that good – just frequent

By Sophie Freeman

Published: 20:28 EDT, 18 August 2023 | Updated: 20:52 EDT, 18 August 2023

A Brazilian father who lost all three of his children to cancer has tragically died from the same disease.

Regis Feitosa Mota, 53, and his children, learned in 2016 that they all had Li-Fraumeni syndrome, or LFS. Among sufferers, 90 percent of men and 70 percent of women go on to develop cancer during their lives.

The economist, from Fortaleza in the northeast of the country, had battled off cancer three times already. But in January this year he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma — a cancer affecting white blood cells.

Eight months later he died, leaving behind his wife Mariella who said the pain was ‘indescribable’ and that she had been sure he would beat the disease.

Their youngest daughter Beatriz died in 2018, aged 10, from leukemia, while their son Pedro died in 2020, aged 22, after suffering a brain tumor. Their eldest Anna Carolina died at the age of 25 last year after also being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

LFS is a condition thought to affect at least one in 20,000 families, and possibly as many as one in 5,000 families. 

Up to 50,000 Americans are thought to have the condition, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The disease is diagnosed via a genetic test with scientists warning it can trigger cancer at any time — although this is more likely to occur at an earlier age.

It is caused by a mutation in the TP53 gene, which means that a protein regulating cell division and triggering cell death when DNA damage is detected does not work.

This raises the risk of cells starting to divide uncontrollably, causing cancer.

People with LFS are most likely to suffer cancers in the bones, muscles and connective tissues as well as breast cancer, brain tumors, leukemia and cancer in the adrenal gland.

But a range of other cancers have also been detected in sufferers, including lung cancer, kidney cancer and cancers in the intestinal tract. 

Mr Mota’s wife, Mariella Pompeu, said after her husband’s death was revealed: ‘My friends, I never imagined making this post.

‘I never prepared myself for this moment because I was always convinced Régis would make a full recovery.

‘It’s an indescribable pain. The ground has opened up and I don’t know what life will be like without his affection, companionship and absolute love.’

His brother Rogério Feitosa Mota said: ‘Our warrior went to meet his children exactly on Father’s Day.

‘May God take you, my brother! We love you so much.’

Mr Mota, was diagnosed with cancer three times between 2016 and 2023.

But in January this year he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma — where  white blood cells start to divide uncontrollably in the bone marrow, crowding out healthy cells.

At the time, he said: ‘We discovered yet another disease. We have already treated lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which are now stabilised.

‘But we have been treating them, they are not cured.

‘This time, we discovered multiple myeloma, which even affects the bones.’

Mr Mota said on social media last week that he was in the hospital waiting for a bone marrow transplant.

He passed away in the state of Ceará, Brazil, where Fortaleza is based, on 13 August — Father’s Day in the South American country.

His body was cremated on 14 August in the city.

Adults with LFS have a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a child with the same condition, scientists say.

Hope for thousands with ADHD as scientists say new brain treatment can ‘transform’ lives of sufferers

• University of Surrey researchers recruited 23 unmedicated children with ADHD
• They took a two-week programme of brain stimulations and cognitive training
• More than half showed significant improvements in symptoms after the 2 weeks 

By Xantha Leatham Deputy Science Editor For The Daily Mail

Updated: 20:00 EDT, 1 August 2023

A 39-year-old mother from Texas has become the sixth victim of a fungus linked to botched cosmetic surgeries in Mexico, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Jody Adkins died last week from fungal meningitis — a rare, life-threatening infection that causes swelling of areas around the brain and spinal cord — after traveling to northern Mexico for cut-price ‘mommy makeover’ procedures.

Mrs Adkins, described as a ‘sweetheart’ and ‘beautiful woman’ by friends and family, leaves behind two daughters — Skyler West and Adelyn, and her husband, Joe.

Health officials believe the fungal outbreak may have come from unsterilized equipment or black-market morphine used at two Mexican clinics.

Mrs Adkins is one of six Americans who have died from the infection, including mom-of-four Lauren Robinson, who received a boob job, liposuction and Brazilian butt lift (BBL) and mom-of-one Shyanne Medrano, who underwent liposuction and a BBL. A further death of a Mexican patient has also occurred, according to local news media.

Medical tourism is a booming industry in Mexico, with around 1.2million Americans traveling south for affordable care each year – nearly double the figure a decade ago.

Hundreds of Americans who traveled to clinics in Matamoros this year could be at risk, based on lists of people who attended the clinics Clinica-K3 or Riverside Surgical Center. 

The fungus isolated in the two clinics appears to be Fusarium solani, which was linked to a previous meningitis outbreak in Durango, Mexico, late last year.

According to the CDC, that outbreak, which was also linked to epidural anesthetic procedures, had an almost 50 percent mortality rate with those infections — with 39 deaths among 80 cases.

The new outbreak is thought to be due to contaminated epidural equipment, used in procedures such as a BBL, or dodgy morphine.

Mrs Adkins, from the town of Kountze, east of Houston, died on 21 June at the Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.

She had traveled to a clinic in Matamoros, a city that borders Texas and was just seven hours away from her home.

The victims of the latest outbreak have paid up to $5,000 for their surgeries, a fraction of the price they would pay in the US.

Health officials have been able to reach roughly half of the 230 people who received surgery at either clinic since the start of the year. The outbreak began on June 1, 2023.

Both clinics were closed in May. But if other confirmed cases are found at other facilities, the number at risk could be much higher.

The CDC is urging everyone who received surgery with an epidural (injection into the spine to numb part of the body) at either clinic this year to go to the nearest emergency room as soon as possible to be evaluated, even if they do not have symptoms.

The epidural is used in procedures such as liposuction, breast augmentation and Brazilian butt lifts, which can be more than $16,000 cheaper than in the US.

Dr Luis Manuel Rivera De Anda performed Ms Robinson and Ms Medrano’s surgeries. 

His Instagram shows a plethora of before and after surgery photos for liposuction, BBLs, and breasts and promotes an offer of full liposuction, a BBL and breast augmentation for 5,000 USD.

If a woman got these surgeries done in the US, it could set them back up to $20,000.

It is unknown whether the women’s infections had anything to do with Dr Rivera De Anda’s actions.

Chris Van Deusen from Texas Department of Health told DailyMail.com that while most of the cases have been women, some have also been men.

He said: ‘If anybody knows of somebody who may have gone to Matamoros to get surgery, let them know that they could be affected by this and to know what to look out for and they can certainly contact either us at the state or their local health department in their area to get more information.’

In its latest update, the CDC said it is investigating 172 people who may have the infection.

There have been six deaths. Five of these are confirmed cases, and one is a probable case. There is now a total of nine confirmed cases, up from six.

The patients being overseen by the CDC reported symptoms including headaches, fever, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and sensitivity to light.

Dr Tom Chiller, head of the fungal diseases branch at the CDC, told DailyMail.com that he wouldn’t be surprised if the death count doubles.

He said: ‘I anticipate more are coming unfortunately… it’s so critical to get people in as early as possible and it’s not really too late. 

‘I think so far longest period from time of procedure to symptoms has been up to 50 days.

‘Fungi just have these long indolent periods sometimes and we’re not sure why and so it’s really not too late, we want people to get in and be evaluated.’

Dr Chiller added that the agency does not know the exact source of the fungal meningitis yet, and ‘we may never know it, unfortunately.’

He said the CDC is open to the fact that the infection could have occurred in other clinics. Currently, the source of the infection is thought to be the morphine provided to patients by anesthesiologists.

Dr Chiller said said: ‘From my understanding, there are many anesthesiologists that visit these different clinics, and each anesthesiologist brings in their own medicines and performs their own manner of anesthesia. 

‘[Mexico has] been trying to talk with anesthesiologists because that’s probably where the risk [is]. I mean, that’s where the risk was. Either the medicines [that] were used or the practices used. I think that Mexico has been trying to figure that out… they are trying to make efforts to speak with anesthesiologists, understand their practices, and if there are problems, try to improve those practices.’

The brain infection is not isolated to one particular surgeon, he said. 

Dr Chiller said: ‘I’m not at all concerned about the surgical procedure itself, or the way they perform the surgery, or the liposuction, or the butt lifts. 

‘We haven’t had a single issue with the particular surgery. It’s all in the meninges [membranes that enclose the brain and spinal cord]. It’s all in this space, where the only thing that is going in there is the epidural.’

‘We think, based on what they’re telling us, that there are two different medicines being used. There’s an anesthetic and then there’s the analgesic. The anesthetic is to numb things, the analgesic is [to help with] pain, and that’s the morphine. 

‘The anesthetic being used is widely distributed across Mexico, so we would think we would be seeing other patients with this, if there were lots are contaminated batches, unless it was particularly distributed to Matamoros. But Mexicans are saying that that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

‘If that’s not the case, [it could be] the analgesic. [The Mexicans] are telling us that morphine is scarce and hard to get, so there may be black or gray markets that are producing this stuff in a non-regulated way. People may be thinking they’re getting legitimate morphine and they’re not. That’s still very unclear to us.’

He added: ‘If that’s the case, then it could be contaminated morphine that anesthesiologists are purchasing. They may be sourcing it from a place that has got bad manufacturing, and there are some contaminated batches. That’s one possibility. 

‘The other possibility is the machinery used to do the catheter and the epidural is somehow contaminated at these two clinics. That seems less likely to me because then I think we would be seeing a lot of infections altogether until it was cleaned, but you never know with fungi.

‘Finally, just the procedure of mixing the drugs potentially, in the hands of the anesthesiologist, there could have been challenges there. Honestly… I just don’t know if we’ll ever know.’

According to local Mexican news outlet Expreso.press, the Mexican patient who died suffered intolerance to medication meaning the dose had to be lowered, which caused the infection to fatally activate.

Two other patients are hospitalized at High Specialty Regional Hospital (HRAE) in Victoria, Mexico.

The Tamaulipas health secretary Vicente Joel Hernández Navarro said: ‘We have to keep an eye on them for more than six months, we cannot claim victory yet, and we ask them not to go [very far].’ 

The best friend of a Texas woman who died from a fungal brain infection after getting cut-price plastic surgery in Mexico has spoken out about the ‘heartbreaking loss.’

Mother-of-one Shyanne Medrano, 31, of Houston, died from fungal meningitis at a hospital on May 16, 2023 and is one of four Texas women who have died from the infection after they went under the knife in the northern border city of Matamoros.

Her best friend since the seventh grade, Laura Garza, told DailyMail.com that Ms Medrano was complaining about headaches in March after the operation and then died two months later following ‘close to five or six strokes.’

‘It’s heartbreaking, especially when they’re wives, mothers, daughters – they’re somebody,’ Ms Garza said. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes around 230 Americans who traveled to clinics in Matamoros this year could be at risk.

And the agency is now urging people to go to the nearest emergency room as soon as possible to be evaluated, even if they do not have symptoms.

Ms Medrano traveled to Matamoros to undergo a Brazilian butt lift (BBL) and liposuction at Clinica-K3.

Dr Luis Manuel Rivera De Anda, listed as a gynecologist online, performed her operation.

His Instagram shows a plethora of before and after surgery photos for liposuction, BBLs, and breasts and promotes an offer of full liposuction, a BBL and breast augmentation for 5,000 USD.

It is unknown whether Ms Medrano’s infection had anything to do with Dr Rivera De Anda’s actions.

Dr Rivera De Anda did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

‘Her results were good. She was happy with how she looked and was feeling ok when she went home,’ said Ms Garza.

‘She was just complaining of some headaches, but she’s always had some, so she didn’t think too much of it.

‘Around Easter, she started feeling a little more pressure [on her head] and her eyes were hurting. She started having that pain in her head.’

A Facebook post by Ms Medrano from April 15 reads: ‘I’m in great pain from my head… today I woke up with an excruciating pain in the back of my head, and it’s really keeping me from functioning normally today.’ 

Ms Medrano then began slurring her words, and doctors later discovered she had had a stroke.

A few weeks after the operation, Ms Medrano was taken to the hospital with nausea, vomiting and fever — all symptoms of fungal meningitis. 

She had ‘close to five or six strokes’, Ms Garza said, as well as blood clots in her head.

Ms Medrano died on May 16, almost two months after her BBL.

Hidalgo County Health Authority Dr Ivan Melendez said around nine patients are in hospitals in Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

He said: ‘The numbers, even in our community, are worrisome.’

He added that those infected might not even realize it: ‘It can be very insidious with its symptoms of headache nausea, vomiting and fever. 

‘It can take a while, that’s why we’re so concerned there could be people with this infection and still not aware of it.’

Ms Medrano leaves behind an eight-year-old daughter.

As of June 14, the CDC reports six confirmed cases of fungal meningitis detected from samples.

There have been four deaths — two of which are confirmed cases and two which are probable.

The CDC has warned that anyone given epidural anesthesia (injection into the spine to numb part of the body) during surgery is at risk and should go to the nearest emergency room to be tested, even if they do not have symptoms.

The epidural is used in procedures such as liposuction, breast augmentation and Brazilian butt lifts, which can be more than $16,000 cheaper than in the US.

The CDC is investigating 172 people who may have the infection.

The clinics under scrutiny are River Side Surgical Center and Clinica K-3 in Matamoros, Mexico, both of which have now been closed.

The patients being overseen by the CDC reported symptoms including headaches, fever, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and sensitivity to light.

The infection causes swelling of the protective lining around the brain and spinal cord, known as the meninges.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said: ‘Fungal meningitis can be life-threatening, and finding infections early is essential for treatment. 

‘Public health workers are directly contacting people in Texas who got surgery at two clinics in Matamoros to inform them of the situation and what steps they should take.’

The fungus isolated in the two clinics appears to be Fusarium solani, which was linked to a previous meningitis outbreak in Durango, Mexico, late last year.

According to the CDC, that outbreak, which was also linked to epidural anesthetic procedures, had an almost 50 percent mortality rate with those infections — with 39 deaths among 80 cases.

The exact cause of the fungal outbreak remains unknown.

Health officials believe fungal meningitis can be contracted if medical devices such as the needle used during an epidural or medications such as morphine are contaminated with fungi or if proper infection prevention control practices are not taken. 

The clinics may have reused medication vials or used alternative medication to morphine due to shortages, both of which can increase the risk of fungal contamination.

Dr Tom Chiller, head of the branch of the fungal disease at the CDC, told NBC News: ‘There could be some bad actors in that space that are essentially operating sort of a black-market type of morphine business.’

CDC officials are looking into how exactly patients were exposed to the infectious fungus during the surgeries and if any other clinics were involved.

US health bosses have called for the deadly fungal outbreak to be declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organization.

A job advert for a brain cancer surgeon potentially paying as little as £33,000 per year has sparked outrage online. 

Barts Health NHS Trust advertised for a neuro-oncology fellow, accredited by the Royal College of Surgeons. 

The fellowship, which specialises in the management and treatment of brain and spinal cord tumours, was listed for between £33,790 and £53,132. 

However, the 12-month fixed term contract, based at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, is applicable only to those ranked CCT/ST8.  

As an ST8 (specialty trainee year eight) medics have already completed a decade working as a junior doctor following a five-year medical degree. 

Upon graduation, all medical graduates must complete a two-year general training programme before embarking on specialty training — which can take up to eight years. 

As an ST8, candidates will have also completed consultancy exams or are about to complete them. 

A Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT), the next level, confirms that a doctor ‘has completed an approved training programme in the UK and is eligible for entry onto the GP Register or the Specialist Register’.

Among the post’s responsibilities include working on-call at the Royal London Hospital, supervising a ST3 trainee — specialty trainee year three — out of hours and attending a weekly multidisciplinary neuro-oncology clinic held at St Bartholemew’s Hospital.

The fellow is also expected to ‘regularly review pre- and post-operative neuro-oncology patients’. 

But taking to social media, Brits shared their outrage at the expected salary requirements in the job ad, which was listed at the end of May. 

In a Twitter post attracting 9.1million views and over 1,000 retweets, one user wrote ‘the UK needs a hard reset’. 

‘Speechless. I hope no-one applies’, responded another user.

‘UK is one of the least attractive countries to work as a doctor’ and I’d like to say I’m shocked. I’m afraid I’m not,’ were among other responses. 

On TikTok, newly qualified medic @Saifs.Space, who will begin as a foundation year one doctor in London shortly, said: ‘This is the person that operates on you or your family member’s brain tumours when you’re so unwell and this is highly skilled and highly specialised work.’ 

In the video watched over 291,000 times, he added: ‘This is just so shameful. This is what we feel our healthcare professionals are worth in the UK.

‘That’s just not it.’

Responding to the TikTok, users expressed their outrage over the salary expectations. ‘I’m so sorry that is ridiculous – this country is a joke’, one responded. 

Another questioned: ‘Is it even worth me starting med school this September?’ 

Barts Health NHS Trust is one of the largest acute trusts in the NHS in England.

Established in 2012, it runs five hospitals throughout the City of London and East London. 

Disgruntled NHS medics say the pandemic has shone a light on how poorly they are valued in the UK, a factor that helped launched a wave of strike action across the UK to boost their pay. 

The British Medical Association (BMA), the organisation behind the action, says the workforce has suffered a 26 per cent real-terms cut to their pay since 2008/09.

Addressing this translates to a 35 per cent pay increase.

If ministers were to accept, some medics would see their salaries increase by up to £20,000.

The BMA’s co-chair Vivek Trivedi has suggested that the BMA are willing to negotiate a deal that would see this restoration completed over a number of years, rather than in one big jump.

However, ministers claim unions’ demands for double digit pay rises are simply unaffordable and would have to come at the expense of patient services.

There are very little signs of any compromise in the future and while the dispute continues NHS waiting lists continue to rise to record levels and more and more staff apply to leave the UK.

The lowest paid junior doctors, in their first foundation year, earn an annual salary of £29,384.

This, the BMA argues, can equate to around £14.09 per hour. But this is dependent on them not working weekends or nights, or earning overtime.

The basic wage of the most senior junior doctor — ST6 to ST8, in their final years of speciality training — is capped at £58,398 per year.

The pay in the job advert that sparked outrage matches the pay-scale for speciality registrars, which begins at £33,790 per year and extends to £53,132. These are still junior doctors, who are training to become consultants. 

Although qualified as consultants once awarded a CCT, some medics find the step-up ‘challenging’, according to the Royal College of Surgeons.

Such fellowships, usually offered on a 12-month basis, ‘help bridge the gap’, it says.

Consultants can be paid upwards of £110,000-a-year. 

As is common across many sectors, junior doctors earn more if they work overtime, overnight, or at the weekend. 

Growing anger among medics over poor pay and working conditions has already seen record numbers of British doctors, nurses and midwives also try to move abroad — with Australia top of their list. 

Almost 25,000 applications to get documents needed to secure a job overseas were made to UK healthcare regulators in 2022. The vast majority represent NHS workers. 

Figures obtained by MailOnline reveal nearly 7,000 doctors applied for documents to support an application to work abroad from the British medical regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), in 2022. This was up from 6,100 in 2019. 

Separate figures for 2023, which only go up until May, suggest this year will see an even bigger exodus, with almost 3,500 applying for their documents so far. 

California influencer, 35, who excitedly charted pregnancy on Instagram is fighting for her life after suffering brain aneurysm one week before due date – and is yet to meet her baby since emergency caesarian

• Jackie Miller James, an influencer based in California, had excitedly charted her pregnancy on Instagram, sharing photos and details with her 27,000 followers
• On Wednesday her sisters Natalie and Nicelle Miller revealed Jackie had suffered a brain aneurysm and was in a coma: her daughter was born via C-section 
• The little girl is being cared for by her father, Jackie’s husband of a year, Austin James: Jackie has had five brain surgeries and the family is fundraising

By Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com

Published: 01:02 EDT, 2 June 2023 | Updated: 01:57 EDT, 2 June 2023

Lauren Harries’ mother Katy has given an update on her hospitalised daughter after she underwent emergency brain surgery.

The former Celebrity Big Brother star, 45, was admitted to hospital last month after suffering horrific headaches and blackouts, with the cause of her troubles unknown.

This month she told fans she was on the mend but admitted to her fans she had nearly died.

On Saturday, Lauren’s mother took to her Twitter page to give fans an update, assuring her followers her daughter would be home soon.

She wrote: ‘Lauren is having physiotherapy to get her strength back after the operation. She is still in hospital but hopefully she will be home soon. 

‘It has been such a stressful time but she knows her family are always with her. We all love her so much, mother and daughter love is so strong!’

Lauren was admitted to hospital last month before having her emergency brain surgery.

Earlier this month, she took to her social media pages to tell fans he had nearly died as a result of her illness. 

The TV personality took to her Instagram stories to tell her followers: ‘Hello my stars. Well I’m still in hospital. 

‘Nearly dying makes you appreciate every moment. So enjoy the sunshine and know that I love you. Light, love and peace.’ 

She then shared a picture of one of her self-portraits which she sells on her website and a couple of the get well soon cards she has received. 

The reassuring post came a day after Lauren’s mother Katy issued a plea for help over Lauren’s ‘incredibly scary’ blackouts and headaches.

Lauren was first admitted into hospital for the procedure on April 14, with the cause unknown. 

Katy has been giving updates on her daughter’s condition, and has now asked for help as the NHS struggle to find answers after saving her life. 

Posting an update to Lauren’s Twitter, her mum wrote: ‘Please help: Lauren has had a number of blackouts after which the right side of her face droops.

‘This is incredibly scary for Lauren and us. She also has a consistent headache. Drs haven’t been able to explain what is causing these.’

Katy continued: ‘Have you or someone you know been through this? Any ideas or help you could give will be so helpful.

‘The NHS saved Lauren but they can’t find any answers for this and it is so scary when it happens.

‘It happened again yesterday. Please help find out what’s causing these!’ 

Last month, Katy shared that Lauren was rushed to intensive care after catching infections before being moved back to neurology.

In the update, shared to Lauren’s official Twitter account at the time, Katy said Lauren was ‘awake and talking’ and urged people to ‘pray for her’.

She shared: ‘Lauren was moved to ICU as she caught Covid as well as 2 infections causing her breathing issues.

‘She is awake and talking again back in Neurology. I want to say thank you again to all the amazing staff at Heath Hospital. She still has a way to go but she is strong. Pray for her.’

Lauren found fame as a precocious 12-year-old antiques expert called James, who appeared on the Antiques Roadshow and Wogan, before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 2003.

The latest health update comes a week after Katy told fans that Lauren had been moved back to recovery, where she was ‘under close watch’. 

Katy had earlier shared that Lauren ‘would have died’ had she not had the surgery and explained how doctors had to perform Lauren’s ‘worst nightmare’ by shaving her hair off.

Laying in hospital with an art book, the TV star still managed to flash a smile for the picture while bandaged up.

Many fans rallied to offer their words of support to Lauren, as they wished her a speedy recovery in the replies.