I chaired the specialised commissioning group last week which was fascinating (and intense work). Ranged around the table were people skilled and experienced in public health, planning, procurement, finance, and a representative of the public who brought common sense and sensible challenge. One of the key issues we debated was whether patient choice could be […]
Category: Columnists
Tiago Villanueva: Does medicine cater for a truly “global” career?
I was inspired during medical school by Mark Wilson’s “Medics’s guide to work and electives around the world,” which conveys the core idea that medicine can be a “passport to the world.” But at first glance, I feel you can’t really compare a conventional medical career with the often apparently more glamourous careers in business, […]
David Kerr: Deus ex machina
Forget complementary therapies, the big question is can engineering succeed where traditional medicine has failed? Anyone following the online technology bible “TechCrunch” might be persuaded by this idea. Here in the US and on the West Coast in particular, the belief is growing that the combination of money and mathematical and engineering brilliance (and also […]
Richard Smith: Working towards universal health coverage
Some one billion people have no access to health care, while each year 150 million experience financial catastrophe and 100 million are pushed into poverty because of having to pay for health care. Those are some of the reasons why the world needs universal health coverage, said David Evans from WHO at the 13th Annual […]
Sandra Lako: World Water Day in Freetown
On my way to Spur Road this morning I walked past a group of children scooping murky water out of the gutter into some buckets. These buckets were then lifted to their heads and carried home. Further down the road there was another group of people, huddled around a standpipe. 45 yellow five-gallon containers were […]
Liz Wager: Journals that dare not speak their name
There’s a new species of journal lurking in the medical publishing jungle, but it doesn’t seem to have a name. As a zoologist turned writer (ie somebody obsessed by taxonomy and words) this bothers me so I hope somebody will christen them soon. To launch this campaign, I’ll begin by describing what the new type […]
Muir Gray: Bye Bye Quality 2.0
I received some criticism for the blog Bye Bye Quality (Hello Value), as a record company might have labelled it, but most reaction was positive. Where it was not this indicated that I had not made clear enough the fact that quality improvement – doing things better – does add value, but the issue is […]
Martin McShane: Development through delivery and delivery through development.
Almost all our emergent consortia have completed their elections. Chairs are being identified and the process of change and transition is accelerating. Someone asked me last week whether the process we were embarking on was irreversible. Psychologically, I think it would be very hard to reverse it but, more importantly, across the country the clustering […]
David Kerr: Would you rather work for Google or the NHS?
Would you rather work for Google or the NHS? Started in 1996 in a Stanford University student room by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the plan was originally to call the newly created search engine, BackRub. Since then Google has become one of the top 10 companies in the world (number 4 at the moment) […]
Richard Smith: Trying to save the forests of Western Kenya
Until very recently the Western Highlands of Kenya (once known as the White Highlands) were thick with forest, but many of those forests have been cut down. A friend in her mid 20s pointed out to me fields on the edge of Eldoret, the main city in the region, that were forest when she was […]