The best thing about Richard Peto’s Harveian Oration last week, apart from its brilliance, wit, and perspicacity, was his definition of “middle age.” Whereas a lesser man might have made it end at 60, or 65, Peto made it stretch to 69, thus brightening the day for many members of the audience. He claimed the […]
Category: Editors at large
Domhnall MacAuley: How to be a great researcher
What do you say when giving a talk at a university where you once worked? To speak about publishing, research, and the BMJ would be quite straightforward. It was a privilege to be invited and great to catch up with old friends but, did I have any additional messages for those setting out on a […]
David Payne: How websites changed newspapers
The editor emailed me this to seek my views about how to make her weekly Editor’s Choice more relevant to the journal’s online readers. The article gets posted on bmj.com every Wednesday and appears in print two days later (all BMJ articles appear online ahead of print). Editor’s Choice helps busy print readers navigate that week’s issue, […]
David Payne: Innovation and scholarly publishing
At a conference I attended in Washington DC last week we discussed innovation in scholarly publishing. One activity was to fast forward to 2022 and imagine what would have changed in the industry. Would print be dead, replaced by tablet and other mobile apps? Will journals still exist in their current form? Might authors bypass […]
Anita Jain: Evidence based medicine and shared decision making in Delhi
A child with rickets who has received varied, sporadic treatment over two years presents with the inability to walk and a short stature. A 55 year old widow diagnosed with hypertension meticulously preserves prescriptions from follow-up visits to the clinic, fully aware that she will purchase these medicines only when she has a good harvest. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Death and youth
Doctors took a long time to recognise that people die. We are no longer afraid to talk about “end of life care.” And, a large number turned up to an 8am fringe meeting run by the RCGP Scotland end of life care subgroup at the RCGP-SAPC Primary Care conference. Lots of ideas are introduced with […]
Elizabeth Loder: Liberating clinical trial data
Unexpectedly, it seemed I was preaching mostly to the converted when I spoke at the recent US Institute of Medicine Workshop on Sharing Clinical Trial Data. I was given the job of the opening “inspirational” talk which was to emphasise the benefits of sharing data from clinical trials. The meeting planners anticipated that later speakers […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Susan Greenfield forecasts the future at the RCGP-SAPC conference
Forecasting the future is a tricky task. It’s not brain surgery—just more difficult. Baroness Susan Greenfield, brain physiologist, writer, and broadcaster shared her four challenges for the future in the context of science and humanity at the RCGP-SAPC Annual Primary Care conference. 1) Nanotechnology. Describing how nanotechnology might change the world would be like trying […]
Domhnall MacAuley: The UMT generation reaches middle age
Remember the UMT* and a one in three. Holiday rotas to cover each other. Going to theatre to hold the retractor. Endless lists on scraps of loose paper. Morning toast in the ward on a night on call. Drips that tissued, catheters blocked, and phone calls at midnight to write up sedation. Going to work […]
David Payne: Loos in Lagos
In a hot Washington DC two days ago I needed the toilet. I was on Wisconsin Avene in Georgetown. My English reserve suddenly overcame me. I dreaded the thought of pushing past clean-cut American families waiting outside restaurants to get a table for Sunday lunch and trying to spot signs for a washroom. In the […]