I survived. In a recent post I worried that the bigwigs at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) would be underwhelmed by my contention that one of the main—and perhaps the most important—functional requirements to get more information used in clinical practice is trust in the information. I was worried the polysyllabic crowd at the Roundtable […]
Category: Columnists
Julian Sheather: Happy-ology
It is possibly the oldest of all philosophical questions. Although academic specialisation has tended to brush it to the wings—embarrassed perhaps by the sheer indeterminate unwieldiness of it—the question of what constitutes a good or flourishing life and how we can live one will not, for good human reasons, go away. And if academic philosophers […]
Liz Wager on the launch of the concordat to support research integrity
I just attended the launch of the concordat to support research integrity developed by some major UK funders and Universities UK. It’s easy to quibble at documents that try to achieve consensus on big issues. Invariably there are some recommendations I’d prefer to be stronger, but instead of carping I’ll focus on some highly positive […]
Marge Berer: All I had to do was take a pill every day, I was told, and hey presto, I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant
I was among the first generation of women in the 1960s to experience the miracle of the pill just at the age when I was wanting to start having sex. All I had to do was take a pill every day, I was told, and hey presto, I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant […]
Edzard Ernst: The “middle ground” fallacy
When we are confronted with two opposing views, we tend to look for the comfort of the middle ground hoping the truth might lie somewhere between the two extremes. For instance, if someone describes a play, a book, or a restaurant as brilliant and another person thinks it is awful, we might feel that, in […]
Richard Smith: “Whole of government and whole of society”: making it real
Have you heard the phrase “whole of government and whole of society?” If you haven’t you soon will. It’s the summary of the formula for fixing many of the world’s most intractable problems—like climate change (or climate disruption, as Martin McShane suggests we call it). I heard it first at the United Nations meeting on […]
Martin McShane: New job
I got a new job last week. My daughter was appearing in Annie at the Retford Majestic Theatre. She belongs to the Mini-Operatic Bunch (MOB), the junior branch of the Retford Operatic Society and each year the kids (upper age limit 18) put on a show which the public pay to see. I was recruited […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Doctors only trust doctors
I’m petrified. I’ve been invited to participate in the Institute of Medicine‘s Roundtable on value and science driven healthcare. The focus of the all-day meeting is “continuous learning and the digital infrastructure for informed clinical decisions,” and the bit that I’m expected to speak about are the “functional needs for digital information at the point […]
Tiago Villanueva: Portugal’s health system in intensive care
Austerity is already asphyxiating Portugal’s health system, and recent developments may soon put it in the intensive care unit. The current state of affairs is so serious that for the first time ever, Portugal’s two medical unions and the Portuguese Medical Association have joined forces to bring forward the first national industrial action supported by […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Err, so what are we talking about again?
Orbiting around the hallowed nucleus of the doctor-patient relationship is an entire healthcare industry that occasionally—although not often enough—impacts on clinical practice. Having spent five years in this orbit one of the things I’ve concluded is that no one really knows what anyone else is saying. That may seem like an inflammatory remark so let […]