The idea has long been around that instead of submitting your paper to one journal you should auction it to the highest bidder. Today I did it. As we all know, getting published in high impact journals is crucial for academics. It shouldn’t be that way, and it’s wholly unscientific to use the impact factor […]
A key challenge of teaching gerontology in health sciences is to liberate ageing from the confines of later life and to view it as a continuous process across the life course. No neater (or more unlikely) support can be found than the themes of ageing, utility, and retirement permeating Skyfall, the latest James Bond movie. […]
Do you regularly read Chronobiology International? No, me neither. But that was the source journal for the article we read at a recent GP journal club I attended in Perth (Western Australia, not Scotland). It reported the 5.6 year follow up results of a 2,000 patient randomised trial that compared evening to morning dosing of […]
All innovation is characterised by many false starts, but occasionally an event feels like the real deal, a sure sense of a phase shift in our world. This was the case earlier this month when I found myself sharing the speakers’ platform with the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), Enda Kenny, at the launch of an […]
Read the rest of this series of blogs about designing and planning population based systems of care here. Step 7: Defining the pathway The pathway is the route the patient usually takes through the system. NICE produces pathways, but these need to be localised using the Map of Medicine or the Pathways for Health software. […]
I was recently asked to give a talk on vaccination and potential conflicts between the rights of parents and the interests of their children. A few years back when my boys were bonny wee things some bohemian friends announced that they would not be vaccinating their children, they would rely instead on homeopathic remedies. Although […]
Europe has started 187 programmes to prevent diabetes, but fewer than 10 survived to the end of funding, said Peter Schwarz from Dresden, at the World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes in Madrid earlier this month. Of the 150 million people in Europe at risk of diabetes only a very few are reached by prevention […]
A striking aspect of clinician involvement in bioethics is the therapeutic focus they bring to the table. Time and again, when non clinician ethicists present dilemmas, the doctors propose fresh diagnostic and therapeutic options, from therapist inputs to treatment choices. These release a creativity that liberates problems from artificially dichotomous and often more emotionally charged […]
More than 200 years ago, the English artist, William Hogarth produced two prints depicting the evils of gin in contrast to the benefits of drinking beer. The inhabitants of Beer Street were portrayed as happy and healthy, nourished by English ale in contrast to the residents of Gin Lane. Gin Lane contained scenes of infanticide, […]
Read the rest of this series of blogs about designing and planning population based systems of care here. Step 6: Creating a network The network is the set of individuals and organisations that delivers the system to the populations. At the start of the project it is also important to agree who the partners are […]