Paddington Bear was at the end of the platform. And, he is still there 15 years later as I travel through London on my way to the BMJ office – still a children’s favourite. But, medical publishing has changed dramatically. Working with Pippa Smart on a training course for medical editors highlighted the transformation. When I first […]
Category: Editors at large
Domhnall MacAuley: The SCAR project. Surviving cancer. Absolute reality.
Ambling along a New York street, a poster grabbed me by the throat. A young woman with a mastectomy scar and pregnant.* “Breast cancer is not a pink ribbon,” it said. And, of course, they are right. But, the stark realism jarred. Breast cancer charities have been very successful with their society balls, pink ribbon […]
Elizabeth Loder on sharing SPIRIT
A diverse collection of people, ranging from medical journal editors to the head of the clintrials.gov trial registration website gathered at the third meeting of the SPIRIT initiative in Toronto on October 2. SPIRIT stands for “standard protocol items for randomised trials.” The goal of the initiative is to improve the quality and completeness of trial […]
Domhnall MacAuley on rowing glory and cruel irony
They asked me to go on the radio. Andy Holmes, double Olympic gold medallist rower had just died of Leptospirosis. After a long break away from the sport, he returned two years ago and, it seems, he caught the disease through his renewed contact with the sport. It is relatively rare, with just 40 cases per annum in the UK, […]
Sally Carter on maternal health – with a touch of glamour
Eighteen months ago I had my first child, and ever since I’ve loved listening to other people’s birth stories – long, short, blissful, or terrifying – I’m all ears. I got a ticket as soon as I saw the London Film Festival was showing No Woman, No Cry, a 60 minute documentary about maternal health directed by the model Christy Turlington Burns. Did it […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Sports medicine awards and research opportunity
The Lord Speaker’s chambers at the House of Lords seemed an appropriate setting for the presentation of the Duke of Edinburgh prize for sport and exercise medicine. And, it seems, it would have taken place at Buckingham Palace had Prince Phillip not had a prior engagement. Among those honoured were the legendary Swedish orthopaedic surgeons […]
Helen Jaques: Evidence and policy making in public health
“Should evidence always dictate policy?” This was the key question at a recent debate at the Royal Society of Medicine organised as part of the Battle of Ideas, a festival that debates the “core issues of the day” and encourages free thinking and lively exchanges of views. […]
Annabel Ferriman: Of magnetricity, hand dryers, and levitating frogs
It is not often you get to swig champagne with a swarm of superior British scientists at the Science Museum but on Tuesday I did just that. I was substituting for our editor Fiona Godlee at a party thrown by the Times newspaper to celebrate the first anniversary of its science magazine, Eureka. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Charge the sick
Why not charge people for being ill? A satirical letter in the Irish Times, recommended a monthly levy on illness. Declan Moriarty suggested a sliding scale so that MS sufferers could be levied €10 per month, Parkinson’s €9, Motor Neuron €8, Friedreich’s Ataxia €7, Arthritis €6, and a levy on every other illness of €5. […]
Rebecca Coombes: Pen mightier than the scalpel…
Forget the Man Booker prize, that’s over for another year. Instead medico-literary eyes are on a £25k prize set to be awarded by a well-endowed medical charity next month. The Wellcome Trust Book Award, which aims to celebrate medicine in literature, has just announced its 2010 shortlist for works of fiction or non-fiction on the […]