Pleased to see the newly published Academy of Medical Royal Colleges submission to DSIT on children growing up in the online world. 🌍
https://lnkd.in/eUD_tRTU
👉 This report reflects growing concern across health, education and safeguarding about the environments many children and young people are now navigating online.
We are seeing increasing exposure to harmful and developmentally inappropriate content, online exploitation, misogyny, racism, bullying and highly persuasive platform design features that encourage compulsive engagement and prolonged use.
👉 The consequences are being seen across children’s mental health, sleep, concentration, relationships, learning and emotional development, particularly for vulnerable children and young people.
The debate needs to move beyond narrow discussions about “screen time” and towards serious consideration of the cumulative impact of digital environments that are not designed with children’s wellbeing at their centre.
Grateful to have contributed to this important work alongside colleagues from other Colleges calling for stronger protections, accountability and evidence-informed policy. And thank you 🙏 to Shamila Wanninayake and Rowena Christmas MBE, who raised this important issue at the Royal College of General Practitioners Council in September 2025.
Max PrangnellDaniel O.Tim MitchellJeanette Dickson
Victoria Tzortziou Brown, OBE The report prepared by your organisation is a polemic. There is very little discussion of potential benefits or the failure to find meaningful associations between digital exposure and harm at population level. It prioritises expert opinion and poor quality surveys over robust peer-reviewed evidence, and gives marginal consideration to complexity, reverse causation and nuance. The attempts to compare the associations to the clear harms of smoking will damage the hard work done to counter misinformation on the very real dangers of smoking.
Healthcare leaders are raising urgent concerns about the impact of digital environments on children and young people. The focus is shifting away from simply measuring “screen time” and toward understanding how online platforms influence mental health, emotional development, learning, sleep, relationships, and behaviour.
Key concerns highlighted include:
Exposure to harmful or age-inappropriate content
Online exploitation, bullying, racism, and misogyny
Addictive platform designs that encourage prolonged engagement
Increased risks for vulnerable children and young people.
The message from health and education leaders is that these issues are now affecting:
Parents struggling to manage children’s online wellbeing
Teachers seeing reduced concentration, emotional regulation, and classroom engagement
School counsellors managing rising anxiety, social pressures, and safeguarding concerns
Healthcare workers treating growing mental health and developmental impacts
Leaders are calling for:
Stronger protections and accountability from technology platforms
Evidence-based policy and safeguarding measures
Greater collaboration between healthcare, education, and families
Digital environments designed with children’s wellbeing at the centre.
The wider societal concern is that unchecked digital harms may have long-term consequences for children’s development, educational outcomes, mental health services, and social wellbeing.
President Royal College of General Practitioners & Vice Chair, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges | Professor in Primary Care and Health Policy | GP & Sports and Exercise Medicine
Pleased to see the newly published Academy of Medical Royal Colleges submission to DSIT on children growing up in the online world. 🌍
https://lnkd.in/eUD_tRTU
👉 This report reflects growing concern across health, education and safeguarding about the environments many children and young people are now navigating online.
We are seeing increasing exposure to harmful and developmentally inappropriate content, online exploitation, misogyny, racism, bullying and highly persuasive platform design features that encourage compulsive engagement and prolonged use.
👉 The consequences are being seen across children’s mental health, sleep, concentration, relationships, learning and emotional development, particularly for vulnerable children and young people.
The debate needs to move beyond narrow discussions about “screen time” and towards serious consideration of the cumulative impact of digital environments that are not designed with children’s wellbeing at their centre.
Grateful to have contributed to this important work alongside colleagues from other Colleges calling for stronger protections, accountability and evidence-informed policy. And thank you 🙏 to Shamila Wanninayake and Rowena Christmas MBE, who raised this important issue at the Royal College of General Practitioners Council in September 2025.
Max PrangnellDaniel O.Tim MitchellJeanette Dickson
With Dr Shamila Wanninayake, I co-authored an RCGP paper exploring the growing digital harms affecting children and young people.
Since then, we attended a round table event at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, one of the most harrowing professional meetings I have ever been part of. Hearing firsthand the scale, severity, and lived impact of these harms was shocking.
Today, AoMRC has published its report. This must be an urgent call to action.
The effects on children’s mental health, development, safety, relationships, and wellbeing are profound, and the pace of technological change continues to outstrip any protections we have.
As clinicians, educators, policymakers, parents, and wider society, we have a responsibility to act now to protect future generations.
I encourage colleagues to read the report and engage with this conversation. The cost of inaction is too high.
President Royal College of General Practitioners & Vice Chair, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges | Professor in Primary Care and Health Policy | GP & Sports and Exercise Medicine
Pleased to see the newly published Academy of Medical Royal Colleges submission to DSIT on children growing up in the online world. 🌍
https://lnkd.in/eUD_tRTU
👉 This report reflects growing concern across health, education and safeguarding about the environments many children and young people are now navigating online.
We are seeing increasing exposure to harmful and developmentally inappropriate content, online exploitation, misogyny, racism, bullying and highly persuasive platform design features that encourage compulsive engagement and prolonged use.
👉 The consequences are being seen across children’s mental health, sleep, concentration, relationships, learning and emotional development, particularly for vulnerable children and young people.
The debate needs to move beyond narrow discussions about “screen time” and towards serious consideration of the cumulative impact of digital environments that are not designed with children’s wellbeing at their centre.
Grateful to have contributed to this important work alongside colleagues from other Colleges calling for stronger protections, accountability and evidence-informed policy. And thank you 🙏 to Shamila Wanninayake and Rowena Christmas MBE, who raised this important issue at the Royal College of General Practitioners Council in September 2025.
Max PrangnellDaniel O.Tim MitchellJeanette Dickson
Thank you to Royal College of General Practitioners and Council members for supporting such important work in safegaurding our children and young people. Frontline health professionals spoke out at the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and I was there with my colleague and friend Rowena Christmas MBE last October to hear the heartbreaking testimonals from colleagues across diverse specialities including the police and forensics.
Do we sit about waiting for more children to be harmed in multiple ways, to satisfy Tech sponsored research that will never reflect the real world - or do we act NOW 🙌 with something real and tangible? The evidence is that social media is emerging as a population-level developmental, physical, social and mental-health risk for children that society has underestimated for years.
📢 With a few hours left please please tell the Government it must deliver on its promise to protect U16s from harmful social media.
It takes 60 seconds, promise 🙏
https://lnkd.in/diZPsDnE
We ask about smoking, alcohol, illicit drug use etc, yet there's not even an Emis code for social media and smartphone use. From the AoMRC document https://lnkd.in/eUD_tRTU:
📌 For medical professionals and healthcare providers, there are 3 recommendations which could be implemented in the coming months;
👉 Provide generic guidelines to clinicians on how to spot the signs of an inappropriate or unhealthy relationship with social media and other online content on tech and devices.
👉 Provide generic guidance to clinicians on how to offer support to children and young people, their parents and carers on ways to develop a healthy relationship with social media and other online content on tech and devices.
👉 Routinely screen for harms when taking a patient’s history and record the data, so that children and young people who are having an inappropriate and unhealthy relationship with social media and other online content on tech and devices can be profiled. This will allow healthcare provision to be direct to where it is most needed.
Victoria Tzortziou Brown, OBERowena Christmas MBERoyal College of General PractitionersHealth Professionals for Safer ScreensJ. Paul WrightAlliance 4 Children CICHilary Williams Munro Stewart Arabella SkinnerDr Rebecca FoljambeRaise The Age UKEllen FallowsAcademy of Medical Royal Colleges
President Royal College of General Practitioners & Vice Chair, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges | Professor in Primary Care and Health Policy | GP & Sports and Exercise Medicine
Pleased to see the newly published Academy of Medical Royal Colleges submission to DSIT on children growing up in the online world. 🌍
https://lnkd.in/eUD_tRTU
👉 This report reflects growing concern across health, education and safeguarding about the environments many children and young people are now navigating online.
We are seeing increasing exposure to harmful and developmentally inappropriate content, online exploitation, misogyny, racism, bullying and highly persuasive platform design features that encourage compulsive engagement and prolonged use.
👉 The consequences are being seen across children’s mental health, sleep, concentration, relationships, learning and emotional development, particularly for vulnerable children and young people.
The debate needs to move beyond narrow discussions about “screen time” and towards serious consideration of the cumulative impact of digital environments that are not designed with children’s wellbeing at their centre.
Grateful to have contributed to this important work alongside colleagues from other Colleges calling for stronger protections, accountability and evidence-informed policy. And thank you 🙏 to Shamila Wanninayake and Rowena Christmas MBE, who raised this important issue at the Royal College of General Practitioners Council in September 2025.
Max PrangnellDaniel O.Tim MitchellJeanette Dickson
Pediatric nursing requires more than just clinical skills—it demands an understanding of how a child perceives the world. 👶🏽🩺
Using Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, this infographic breaks down how clinical communication must shift as a patient grows. From the sensory-driven world of an infant to the abstract thinking of an adolescent, tailoring your teaching strategy minimizes anxiety and improves compliance.
Key takeaways for your practice:
Sensorimotor (0–2 yrs): Teach in the present moment while performing the care.
Preoperational (3–6 yrs): Prepare them shortly before the procedure to minimize magical thinking/fear.
Concrete Operational (7–11 yrs): Utilize demonstrations and teach days in advance.
Formal Operational (12–15 yrs): Treat them as active participants in adult-style health literacy.
Save this guide for your clinical rotations or share it with your nursing peers!
#NursingEducation#PediatricNursing#NCLEXPrep#NursingFaculty#ClinicalInstruction
A unique, hands-on learning experience brought students and community members together in a meaningful way. 💙
In collaboration with the University of Nevada, Reno Orvis School of Nursing, Physician Assistant Studies Program, School of Social Work, Sanford Center for Aging and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Nevada, Reno, current health care students participated in a half-day experiential learning program centered on individualized elder assessments.
Paired with older adult volunteers, students engaged in 20–30 minute conversations rooted in real-life experiences. Without a script, these interactions encouraged authentic connection while applying the 4Ms framework — what matters, medication, mentation, and mobility.
Experiences like this help shape more compassionate, well-rounded future health care professionals.
🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/4n8YsTC#PackPride#AHealthyNevada
🌸 ICYMI, our last paper from the Landscape of Disability Inclusion in Medical Education section of the Disability Supplement from the Academic Medicine Journal asks us to consider...
What does it actually take for medical students with disabilities to feel like they belong in academic medicine?
This commentary—“The Critical Nature of Belonging in Academic Medicine for Medical Students With Disabilities”—highlights something we don’t talk about enough belonging.
Drawing on the work of student-led organizations like Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness (MSDCI), the @Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities (CAPD), and the Disability Advocacy Coalition in Medicine | DAC Med, the authors show how community, mentorship, and collective action are shaping more inclusive training environments.
These spaces aren’t just supportive—they’re transformative. They create pathways for leadership, connection, and persistence in environments that have not always made room.
💡 Belonging grows where disabled trainees are seen, supported, and valued—and where systems are willing to evolve.
Take a look at this open-access piece: https://lnkd.in/g7C7zquz#DisabilityInMedicalTraining#MedicalEducation#Belonging#AcademicMedicine#HealthProfessionsEducation
A medical school where students garden, cook, and sketch faces before they ever prescribe. This is a $250 million bet that medicine has been doing it wrong.
Alice Walton — the world's richest woman — didn't buy another island. She used her Walmart fortune to build the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) in Arkansas. And it is unlike anything medicine has tried before.
Here's what makes it radical:
🌱 Students study 50+ hours of nutrition — double most medical schools — and they actually cook and grow food
🎨 Students sketch patients' faces to learn how suffering lives in expression and silence, not just lab values
🏛️ The building is connected to an art museum — healing gardens and teaching farms are core curriculum, not wellness add-ons
💸 Free tuition for the first five graduating classes — removing the debt pressure that funnels doctors away from prevention
This isn't soft medicine. It's a structural challenge to the dominant model.
We have spent decades asking doctors to fix downstream damage while ignoring upstream causes. Diabetes rooted in poor nutrition. Heart disease fueled by stress and isolation. Mental health crises born from loneliness. And we wonder why the system collapses.
AWSOM is based in Arkansas — ranked 48th in U.S. health outcomes. That is not a coincidence. That is a deliberate choice. If this model can't matter there, it can't matter anywhere.
The real disruption? Training doctors to prevent disease threatens the economic logic of healthcare — an industry that profits enormously from chronic, preventable sickness.
Evidence without humanity is insufficient. Prevention without structure is fantasy.
The question isn't whether this experiment will work.
The question is whether the rest of medicine is brave enough to follow.
🔗 Full article: https://lnkd.in/eU-YKKjb#MedicalEducation#HealthcareInnovation#PreventiveMedicine#HealthEquity#WholePerson#FutureOfMedicine#PublicHealth#EchoesInHealthcare#AWSOM
A medical school where students garden, cook, and sketch faces before they ever prescribe. This is a $250 million bet that medicine has been doing it wrong.
Alice Walton — the world's richest woman — didn't buy another island. She used her Walmart fortune to build the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) in Arkansas. And it is unlike anything medicine has tried before.
Here's what makes it radical:
🌱 Students study 50+ hours of nutrition — double most medical schools — and they actually cook and grow food
🎨 Students sketch patients' faces to learn how suffering lives in expression and silence, not just lab values
🏛️ The building is connected to an art museum — healing gardens and teaching farms are core curriculum, not wellness add-ons
💸 Free tuition for the first five graduating classes — removing the debt pressure that funnels doctors away from prevention
This isn't soft medicine. It's a structural challenge to the dominant model.
We have spent decades asking doctors to fix downstream damage while ignoring upstream causes. Diabetes rooted in poor nutrition. Heart disease fueled by stress and isolation. Mental health crises born from loneliness. And we wonder why the system collapses.
AWSOM is based in Arkansas — ranked 48th in U.S. health outcomes. That is not a coincidence. That is a deliberate choice. If this model can't matter there, it can't matter anywhere.
The real disruption? Training doctors to prevent disease threatens the economic logic of healthcare — an industry that profits enormously from chronic, preventable sickness.
Evidence without humanity is insufficient. Prevention without structure is fantasy.
The question isn't whether this experiment will work.
The question is whether the rest of medicine is brave enough to follow.
🔗 Full article: https://lnkd.in/eJKFZRK3#MedicalEducation#HealthcareInnovation#PreventiveMedicine#HealthEquity#WholePerson#FutureOfMedicine#PublicHealth#EchoesInHealthcare#AWSOM
A medical school where students garden, cook, and sketch faces before they ever prescribe. This is a $250 million bet that medicine has been doing it wrong.
Alice Walton — the world's richest woman — didn't buy another island. She used her Walmart fortune to build the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) in Arkansas. And it is unlike anything medicine has tried before.
Here's what makes it radical:
🌱 Students study 50+ hours of nutrition — double most medical schools — and they actually cook and grow food
🎨 Students sketch patients' faces to learn how suffering lives in expression and silence, not just lab values
🏛️ The building is connected to an art museum — healing gardens and teaching farms are core curriculum, not wellness add-ons
💸 Free tuition for the first five graduating classes — removing the debt pressure that funnels doctors away from prevention
This isn't soft medicine. It's a structural challenge to the dominant model.
We have spent decades asking doctors to fix downstream damage while ignoring upstream causes. Diabetes rooted in poor nutrition. Heart disease fueled by stress and isolation. Mental health crises born from loneliness. And we wonder why the system collapses.
AWSOM is based in Arkansas — ranked 48th in U.S. health outcomes. That is not a coincidence. That is a deliberate choice. If this model can't matter there, it can't matter anywhere.
The real disruption? Training doctors to prevent disease threatens the economic logic of healthcare — an industry that profits enormously from chronic, preventable sickness.
Evidence without humanity is insufficient. Prevention without structure is fantasy.
The question isn't whether this experiment will work.
The question is whether the rest of medicine is brave enough to follow.
🔗 Full article: https://lnkd.in/eNGGrJRX#MedicalEducation#HealthcareInnovation#PreventiveMedicine#HealthEquity#WholePerson#FutureOfMedicine#PublicHealth#EchoesInHealthcare#AWSOM
📣 New Open-Access Article advances intersectionality-informed constructivist grounded theory, strengthening how nursing research addresses power, inequities, and social justice.
✨ Highlights:
Reimagines GT methods through an intersectionality lens
Centers power, context, and researcher positionality
Offers an equity-driven blueprint informed by work with public health nurses and refugee-mothering women
🌍 A timely contribution to advancing health equity in qualitative research from Shahin Kassam PhD, RN et al. Check it out here:
🔗 https://lnkd.in/gSC9cgyf#QualitativeResearch#NursingResearch#Intersectionality#HealthEquity
Victoria Tzortziou Brown, OBE The report prepared by your organisation is a polemic. There is very little discussion of potential benefits or the failure to find meaningful associations between digital exposure and harm at population level. It prioritises expert opinion and poor quality surveys over robust peer-reviewed evidence, and gives marginal consideration to complexity, reverse causation and nuance. The attempts to compare the associations to the clear harms of smoking will damage the hard work done to counter misinformation on the very real dangers of smoking.