One advantage of spending so much of my time “on the road” is that I’ve had the opportunity to observe first-hand how many nations have opted for tobacco control policies that reduce the harm for smokers who either can’t or won’t stop. […]
Category: Guest writers
Douglas Noble: Easter and transplantation
Sally Slater last week celebrated the tenth anniversary of her life-saving heart transplant. Sally was only six when she had the operation and was pictured with Billie Piper after the operation. Now, at 16, she is turning her attention to improving health policy. In last week’s Telegraph (News Digest, March 29) she called for nationwide […]
Siddharta Yadav: Politicizing medical education
Yesterday, I witnessed a doctor being beaten up at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital of Nepal. The doctor was exiting the hospital grounds when a group of people stopped him. Few words were exchanged and suddenly, one of the persons from the group repeatedly punched and kicked the doctor. The doctor shouted for help. The […]
Guy Lloyd: Dix huit semaines, zut alors!
Will none of our great political parties do something real and meaningful (as opposed to eye catching and cosmetic) about the NHS? The horror of health poverty in the USA means that our NHS appears safe and virtuous, almost cuddly. At least in this country nobody goes untreated for want of adequate means. This appears […]
Jeremy Sare: Mephedrone
It’s like old times really. Exactly five years ago, new drug laws being were being pushed through amid the febrile and shadowy atmosphere of a Parliament readying itself for a General Election. In 2005, I was a Home Office official witnessing the Drugs Act hurtle at an unseemly pace through both Houses. I am bound […]
Julian Sheather: The ghosts of medicine
I was at the Liverpool Medical Institution recently, judging a debating competition between medical students from Manchester and Liverpool. […]
Eleanor Chrispin: Memory
Who hasn’t, in a moment of regret, wished they could turn back the clock? While time travel remains out of our grasp, the ability to erase certain memories – not so much changing the past, as fundamentally altering our recalled experience of it – could be the next best thing. […]
Muza Gondwe: The Royal African Science Prize
The audience falls deathly silent in the flamboyantly adorned grand hall where scientists from across Africa have congregated to hear the announcement. Meanwhile, in distant homelands people crowd around televisions and radios, waiting with baited breath. “This year’s Royal African Science Prize is awarded for scientific achievement that has dramatically improved the health of millions of […]
Philipp du Cros: A Momentous Day?
Mr S looked calm and somewhat bemused by the commotion. He had twice unsuccessfully undergone standard treatment for tuberculosis (TB) and had been taking antiretrovirals for HIV for over a year—he was used to medications and health workers. But today was different. It was the first day of his multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment, and four staff […]
Jane O’Brien asks: What worries you most in your career?
Good Medical Practice (2006) and other GMC guidance is all motherhood and apple pie, right? You read it once and put it on a shelf, because it doesn’t really help out there in the real world. But, when doctors email or ring us to ask for advice, we are almost always able to respond by […]