How can we measure the impact of research? What is impact, and how can we show that research leads to measurable outcomes for patients? On 10 May, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) held their annual scientific day, and the focus of the day was to try and answer some of these questions. There was also a […]
Category: Editors at large
Domhnall MacAuley: Designing general practice for others
Flying off to Berne to talk about general practice in the future, I met a GP colleague in the airport. A conversation contrasting theory and reality. Asked to talk to Swiss GPs about the best models of European general practice, with particular focus on the UK, I looked back on the effect of the 2004 […]
Readers’ editor: BMJ cruise, anyone?
Readers of the Radio Times can visit locations used in the filming of Sir David Attenborough’s Africa on a tailor made tour offered by the 90 year old UK listings magazine. The Africa trip is one of dozens of destinations listed on RT Travel page and the latest example of how publishers are increasingly thinking like […]
Kelly Brendel: Is print dead?
Digital was definitely the catchword at a meeting of UK magazine publishers in London last week. Perhaps more surprising was how often the print medium emerged as a continuing focus in a conference about the rising number of digital platforms and channels. At this meeting of the Professional Publishers Association’s (PPA), organisers presented the results […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Pot plants and care homes
I cannot have pot plants in the house. The overwhelming smell of pot plants and stale urine is my lasting memory of visiting residential and nursing homes many years ago as a GP trainee in Devon. Rows of pot plants arranged in the hallway and rows of elderly people in front of the television. This […]
Edward Davies: Patient charges would fundamentally undermine the NHS
Patient charges have featured in the British press in recent weeks after Malcolm Grant, the head of NHS England, raised their spectre last month. Until recently I was undecided about patient charging. There’s mixed evidence and obvious downsides, but health spending is a bottomless pit, and £5 judiciously applied here or there seems like a […]
Trish Groves: Data sharing: where are we?
The movement towards open science is gathering pace, driven by scientific and ethical imperatives—not simply by the technological possibilities. In medicine such openness has real potential to benefit patients and society. Indeed, the arguments for open registration and publication of studies’ protocols, methods, and main results are underpinned by ethical arguments that are focused on […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Celebrating clinical teaching in Wales
We don’t celebrate success enough in medicine. We sometimes mutter, grumble, and gripe, but we seldom congratulate our friends and colleagues on their success. What a pleasure therefore to attend the Welsh Clinical Teacher of the Year Awards in the beautiful Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. A gala evening of recognition for those […]
Readers’ editor: Crazy eggs and the BMJ in a mobile world
Each year the BMJ runs an online reader survey. The survey is mainly multiple choice but there is also a free text question where we ask readers: “What single improvement to bmj.com would make the most difference to you?” Every year the most popular response is “Make it free.” There are other recurring responses to […]
Krishna Chinthapalli on Atul Gawande—thinker, leader, doctor, writer
In 2009, Obama convened senior politicians in the Oval Office to discuss one magazine article: why were there Medicare costs of $15,000 per person per year in the Texan town of McAllen, when a neighbouring town had costs of $7,500 per person per year? Especially when the hospitals in McAllen were performing worse than its […]