Singer Cheryl Cole may turn out to be the most famous person to get malaria in 2010, but of course she’s not the only one. And more importantly, she’s hardly typical of malaria patients who are likely to be impoverished residents with poor access to prophylaxis living in areas with run-down public health infrastructures. While […]
Category: Guest writers
Beth Cherryman: A graduate tax
Business secretary Vince Cable has proposed a “graduate tax” as a solution to university funding. Graduates will be taxed according to some percentage of their income (once earning over £15,000 a year). In this system higher earners will pay more tax. Cable argues this is a fairer option than that employed currently, in which, after […]
Chris Ham on GP commissioning
In a recent speech to the BMA, Andrew Lansley argued that separating the management of care from the management of resources was a fundamental weakness, adding “examples in America of physician-led, more integrated services, demonstrate how differently – and effectively – they can deliver care.” As someone who has studied integrated delivery systems in the […]
Julian Sheather on sexuality and a severely brain damaged partner
Difficult cases may make bad law, but they can also be a powerful stimulus for thought. A problem may be a candle, as the French writer Paul Valéry put it, but an insurmountable problem is a sun. The Hastings Center, a leading US bioethics think tank, recently posted a legal case that asks ferociously difficult […]
John Ellershaw on end of life care
The General Medical Council’s guidance to doctors on end of life care, which came into force on 1 July, is obviously a welcome and much-needed initiative. It is interesting to see that Dominic Bell in his BMJ editorial emphasised that the GMC acted in response to concerns from doctors themselves, particularly about issues around patients […]
Ike Anya on his first Faculty of Public Health conference
I attended my first Faculty of Public Health Annual Conference at Imperial College London last week. I’m told it used to be a 2-day event with several breakout sessions, but this was a smashing one day event with a keynote address from the new Secretary of State for Health( more of whom later), two plenary sessions […]
Andrew Burd on acute email withdrawal
The departmental server went down in the period of time between leaving work on Friday evening and arriving home. In Hong Kong we are ahead of most of the world and so when our work hours are over, the west is just getting started. This is why the evening email check has become part of […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: The hidden burden of women smokers in Bangladesh
Change is afoot in Bangladesh in terms of smoking and may represent a missed opportunity to prevent women from smoking. According to the WHO report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008, nearly two-thirds of the world’s smokers live in 10 countries including Bangladesh. Tobacco use is common among men across all sectors. 60% of men […]
Kayte McCann on health inequalities
If I were to ask you what the primary care trusts of Gateshead, Lambeth, Rotherham, Liverpool and Tower Hamlets had in common, what would you say? […]
Khalid Ali: Angels or demons? When doctors become perpetrators
Sand Cliffs (Faleze de nisip) Director: Dan Pita Showing at the Curzon Mayfair cinema, London, on 3 July 2010 as part of the Romanian Film Festival in London, 2-4 July 2010 Rating: *** Links between doctors and corrupt government members have been previously explored in films such as The Last King of Scotland (Review BMJ […]