Explore the vast range of titles available.

OK, IT'S August. Half the population is on holiday. There's not much happening. And the newspapers are filling pages and pages with stories like the celebrity overdose at Tina Brown's New York launch of Talk magazine and Japan's oldest twins planting trees on their 107th birthday. The advantages of this are obvious, at least in theory. Selecting from hundreds of products means they should find the right policy or investment for each individual. In practice, there are good and bad IFAs with few really scouring the entire product range for every customer. Most IFAs are paid through commission which has to be disclosed. A minority, usually those dealing with the better off, are 'fee-based' - they charge their services by the hour and rebate any commission that arises from their recommendations. Fee-based work currently suffers from a VAT disadvantage - the OFT wants this anomaly removed but it fought shy of recommending that only fee-based advisers could call themselves independent.

Let's leave the performing to the track and field, writes John Smith.

Men and women often climb differently. Janice Uhrig, 41 of Madison, started climbing 5 years ago with a male friend. When she joined Madison Women Climbers two years ago, she says, her learning curve steepened. Learning the sport requires interaction with other climbers, because climbers copy one another. This makes clubs like Madison Women Climbers useful, even when they don't offer brief talks on footing or gripping every week. \"Most often, we just get together and climb,\" says [Anne Hughes]. \"You learn a ton that way.\" Even experienced climbers copy others, says Uhrig. \"There's never one way only to do something,\" she explains. Climbers need to experiment with moves they see used on a particular problem. \"I may learn something (through copying someone else) I might not have learned,\" Uhrig says.

Background The probability of undergoing treatment with curative intent according to the hospital of diagnosis varies for esophagogastric cancer in the Netherlands. Little is known about the factors contributing to this variation. This study aimed to improve the understanding of the differences between the multidisciplinary team meeting treatment proposal and the treatment that was actually carried out and to qualitatively investigate the differences in treatment decision‐making after the multidisciplinary team meeting treatment proposal between hospitals. Methods To gain an in‐depth understanding of treatment decision‐making, quantitative data (i.e., multidisciplinary team meeting proposal and treatment that was carried out) were collected from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. Changes in the multidisciplinary team meeting proposal and applied treatment comprised changes in the type of treatment option (i.e., curative or palliative, or no change) and were calculated according to the multivariable multilevel probability of undergoing treatment with curative intent (low, middle, and high). Qualitative data were collected from eight hospitals, including observations of 26 outpatient clinic consultations, 30 in‐depth interviews with clinicians, seven focus groups with clinicians, and three focus groups with patients. Clinicians and patients' perspectives were assessed using thematic content analysis. Results The multidisciplinary team meeting proposal and applied treatment were concordant in 97% of the cases. Clinicians' implementation of treatment decision‐making in clinical practice varied, which was mentioned by the clinicians to be due to the clinician's personality and values. Differences between clinicians consisted of discussing all treatment options versus only the best fitting treatment option and the extent of discussing the benefits and harms. Most patients aimed to undergo curative treatment regardless of the consequences, since they believed this could prolong their life. Conclusion Since changes in the multidisciplinary team meeting‐proposed treatment and actual treatment were rarely observed, this study emphasizes the importance of an adequately formulated multidisciplinary team meeting proposal. The probability of undergoing treatment with curative intent according to the hospital of diagnosis has been shown to vary considerably for esophagogastric cancer in the Netherlands. Little is known about the factors that contribute to this variation in practice. In this study, we aimed to improve our understanding of the differences between the multidisciplinary team meeting (MDTM) treatment proposal and the treatment that was actually carried out and to qualitatively investigate the differences in treatment decision‐making (TDM) after the MDTM treatment proposal between hospitals.