This week, thanks to a pledge of £30K from the dance floor company British Harlequin, Dance UK’s dream of establishing a UK National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science chasséd a little closer towards becoming a reality. Two years ago Dance UK, along with Laban, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Jerwood Centre for the Prevention and Treatment […]
Category: Editors at large
Annabel Ferriman: Nudging, fudging, and politics
Would you rather be nudged or nannied? Andrew Lansley clearly thinks the first is infinitely preferable to the second. And BMJ columnist Nigel Hawkes thinks that nudging is much nicer because it assumes you are an adult rather than a recalcitrant child. […]
Kirsten Patrick on 5-a-day fitness
All over the news in the UK recently was a story about The British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine (BASEM) endorsing a “quick training programme designed to address criticism over the way PE is taught in English schools.” BASEM apparently called for all schools to use the short exercise routine called “five-in-five”, devised by […]
Domhnall MacAuley on sports medicine’s top ten
Sports medicine’s top ten. The keynote speaker had to drop out – could I give a talk about the top papers in 2010 at the UK sports and exercise medicine meeting (UKSEM) …this is a selection of papers that caught my eye with some additional suggestions from colleagues. See what you think: […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Comprehensivists vs partialists at NAPCRG
Innovative primary care pilot programmes are big news in the US. Money talks, and from a business perspective, primary care is good value. So good, that Paul Grundy’s (US) company IBM provides free primary care to its employees and incentivises referral strategies. Rebranded as the advanced medical home in the US, his model of personal and […]
Harriet Vickers: Lessons from “Bloodgate”
What do the conductor of the London Mozart players, a Michelin-starred chef, the surgeon who treated the survivors of an Everest disaster, a leading UK barrister and Max Clifford have in common? Superficially, not much. However this week the Risky Business conference brought these people, among many equally varied others, to speak to healthcare professionals […]
David Payne: Safe planes and the night handover
Patient safety conference organisers are fond of the analogy between aviation and medicine. Former F18 pilot Steve Kreister addressed delegates attending the paediatrics day of Risky Business 2010 in London yesterday afternoon. Airline pilot Martin Bromiley – founder of the Independent Clinical Human Factors Advisory Group (CHFG) – addressed BMJ Group’s Agents for Change conference […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Tops docs at NAPCRG
Britain’s top doctors. The headline caught my attention in the supplement to last Saturday’s “Times.” At a time when doctors seem under almost daily attack, it was good to see a UK national newspaper list some positives. Excellent doctors. Medicine in the headlines for the best reasons. But where were the general practitioners? There was […]
Peter Lapsley: From minor to major
It is good to be able to report good news from time to time, doubly so when it is two pieces of good news rolled into one. The government’s decision not to proceed with Automatic Generic Substitution (AGS) is a case in point. […]
Helen Jaques: Radiation – good or bad?
Radiation has received a mixed press since the discovery of x rays 115 years ago. Wilhelm Roentgen’s exciting new finding was initially thought to be beneficial for health and was quickly embraced by scientists as well as the public, who went crazy for the “medicine” radithor – radium 226 and radium 228 in distilled water […]