The books shortlisted for this year’s Wellcome Book Prize are both challenging and engaging, according to author Val McDermid who chaired the award’s judging panel. Introducing the shortlist, McDermid said, “These books have affected us in ways we didn’t expect. Sometimes we found ourselves very emotionally involved, sometimes we found our curiosity stimulated to go […]
Thinking about dementia and its impact on society can often leave one feeling rather hopeless, despite interesting new approaches to management and treatment, such as those explored a few months ago at Southampton University’s public lecture on ageing at London’s King’s Fund. But last week I had the opportunity to consider dementia in a more […]
I don’t think I will ever give a presentation the same way again. A few months ago, I was invited to speak at the TEDxNHS event in London, about the infographics I make for The BMJ. Over the years, I have enjoyed watching many TED talks, and independently organised TEDx events. They are engaging glimpses […]
How can we get to zero unregistered clinical trials? Elizabeth Loder discusses. […]
Who gets to define value in health systems? The notion that it should be the people who use their services, rather than those who provide them, is gaining momentum. At a meeting in Paris this week, convened by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), revolutionary zeal was in the air as speakers urged […]
Medicine and health regularly dominate news headlines—and this year was no different. The Zika outbreak, NHS crisis, and countless studies on nutrition, diet, and fitness were among those to make top news globally. Here are The BMJ’s top articles that received the most amount of media attention in 2016, illustrating some of these trends. […]
News items about fraud and corruption in healthcare always attract a lot of attention, and 2016 was no exception. The most popular story on bmj.com this year concerned scientists at the top US public health agency, who were unhappy about a slew of what they saw as unethical practices that compromised their employer’s independence and […]
Corruption in health systems has been described as “one of the biggest open sores in medicine.” It occurs in many guises and all countries. Patients may be unaware of the price they pay for corrupt procurement processes, manipulation of drug trial data, and conflicts of interest, but they are well aware if they need to make “informal” […]
“It was a good idea to get an economist to lead the review,” said Lord Jim O’Neill in Westminster yesterday*, referring respectively to himself and his 2016 report on Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally. The numbers are important. At current trends, there will be 10 million deaths annually from antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by 2050, and $100 […]
I read with interest some recent articles about the interplay between private healthcare insurance and state provided healthcare. [1][2][3] A substantial proportion of the population has private health insurance in Portugal, where I work as a GP. Funding cuts and raised co-payments because of the financial crisis have decreased the appeal of public healthcare, prompting […]