The Thames is wreathed in smog—the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, issues an air quality alert and announces a new system of air quality warnings. There will be road-side dot matrix message signs on the busiest main roads into London, with instructions to switch engines off when stationary to reduce emissions. Air quality messages will […]
As medicine continues to grow in complexity and diversity, it is fair to ponder what roles may be best suited for the medical workforce of the future. A recent opinion piece argued that since we have no models permitting “any single physician to simultaneously and effectively serve the many patient subpopulations that exist,” we need […]
The charge of gross negligence manslaughter, a criminal offence, is rarely invoked in medical cases. In the most recent, a surgeon, Mr David Sellu, was convicted but released after serving half of a 30 month sentence, the judge having failed to instruct the jury on the difference between gross and simple negligence. Liam Donaldson, Clare […]
The recent proposals by NICE and NHS England to change arrangements for evaluating and funding drugs and other health technologies not only tidy up the processes, but introduce some important new elements. The four proposed elements are to: Introduce a “fast track” NICE technology appraisal process for the most promising new technologies, which fall below an […]
Walking through Rio de Janeiro’s largest slum, Favela da Rocinha, in the pouring rain is probably not the wisest thing for a foreign visitor to do. But on a recent trip to Rio, I was determined not to squander the one chance I had to visit the Maria do Socorro Silva e Souza Family Health Clinic—one of […]
From Healthy China 2020 to Healthy China 2030 Seven decades ago, China’s healthcare was characterised by barefoot doctors who demonstrated the contribution of primary care to improved population health. Subsequent reform, however, restructured the healthcare delivery model to focus on providing curative care in a market driven system as opposed to spending on preventive care. […]
The fourth of Galen’s four fluid humours of the body, μέλαινα χολή, black bile, was associated, when in supposed excess, with a melancholic temperament, as defined in the OED: “Originally … sullen, unsociable, given to causeless anger, brooding (obs.). Later: liable to melancholy; depressed, gloomy, mournful”. The IndoEuropean root MEL described any dark colour, typically black. […]
One of the great challenges of progress in the medical humanities is that of time and space. Interested clinicians tend not to work in the arts blocks of universities, and humanities scholars rarely frequent clinical settings. The hard graft of interdisciplinary research is ever more elusive without the opportunity to mingle, discuss, and challenge. Our […]
Until last year the Cholera Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, could have a thousand admissions a day before and after the monsoon. On a calm day now it still has hundreds. Not all the patients, many of them children, have cholera but many do. Many of the children also have malnutrition, sometimes severe. In order to […]
When you enter the room in the Louvre that contains the Mona Lisa you find people crowded around the bullet-proof case that contains the Mona Lisa and largely ignoring the other paintings in the room, which include other masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci. Four-fifths of the people who visit the Louvre do so to visit […]