The annual NHS Confederation shindig was set to be the usual trawl through the good, the bad and the really pretty mediocre of the NHS, when something rather different caught my eye. […]
Category: Editors at large
Domhnall MacAuley:Working Epidemi-holiday
Epidemi-holiday is what the students used to call their attachment. A bit unkind, although with hindsight I may have missed an occasional lecture or tutorial as a student myself……times have changed, and epidemiology was centre stage, at the launch of the Centre of Excellence for Public Health in Northern Ireland (June 18th), part of the […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Sporting excellence
Sport, medicine and royalty- what an eclectic mix, or maybe not. With some timely encouragement from HRH the Princess Royal, introducing the BMA conference Excellence in Health The Olympic ideal, mainstream medicine is starting to recognise that sport offers some very useful solutions to the growing problems of obesity and associated chronic disease. […]
Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women?
It’s only since taking on this job that I’ve noticed how few women speak at medical conferences. It seems to me that half the time I’m the only woman on the programme and the other half I’m in the audience listening to an all male line up. I don’t believe in tokenism and anyway, given […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Big in Japan
Arriving in Tokyo, the signs and maps impenetrable, and rush hour a torrential flood of determined faces in swirls and eddies through the halls of the seven level central station. Without a guide, it would be almost impossible to find one’s way. Thankfully Miki Inoue and Hiroshi Takayanagi, residents in family medicine with Professor Ryuki […]
Harvey Marcovitch: Saving polar bears and children
I had no idea of what it meant when I was asked to put myself up for election as a director of the Council of Science Editors . Since this is largely a US outfit, I wondered about a strategy for the Primaries. Should I concentrate on building close relationships with editors of obscure journals […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Eurovision and health
Here’s a challenge for any commentator – to link the results of the Eurovision song contest and our health care system. The UK, where we pride ourselves as world leaders in contemporary music, had a dismal result on Saturday. […]
Fiona Godlee: Learning safety from other industries
At an international patient safety meeting I attended earlier this month (part of a series, see riskybusiness2008.com), I found myself remembering words from Atul Gawande’s book Complications (if you haven’t read it, I recommend it.) Gawande writes: “We have come to view medicine as both more perfect than it is and less extraordinary than it […]
Trish Groves: Turning the light on
BMJ Deputy Editor Trish Groves blogs from the Council of Science Editors (CSE) annual meeting in Vancouver. “Accurate and transparent reporting is like turning on the light before you clean up a room: it doesn’t clean it for you but does tell you where the problems are” (Frank Davidoff, editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Drugtaking in sport
We now know the prescription for sporting success. The pharmacopeia outlined last week in the letter from Victor Conte revealed by British sprinter Dwain Chambers, is staggering but unsurprising. Drug use is well recognised in sport but very difficult to quantify. The occasional positive test or even the large scale investigation of the Tour de France creates […]