I am at present conducting a systematic review and meta analysis that involves a detailed appraisal of the quality of studies. It has made me realise all over again how impoverished the narrative of the classical scientific paper really is. Indeed, as Francis Crick wrote in his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: “There is no […]
Category: Guest writers
Tracey Pérez Koehlmoos turns the light on for donors and non-communicable diseases in developing countries
Last week two very important persons from a big donor agency came to visit me in my office in Dhaka. These men have vast experience in global health, and the agency for which they work has helped greatly with improving health and alleviating poverty in the developing world, especially in Bangladesh. I was humbled to have […]
Patrick Basham: The DoH is wrong about cessation
I’m very disappointed in the section on cessation contained within the UK Department of Health’s new tobacco control strategy. There are several problems with the DoH’s ideas on cessation (and I’ll have more to say about them in future posts), but one of the most significant is its claims about how to quit smoking most […]
Julian Sheather on banned words
I know not whether to laugh or cry. Into my inbox has just popped an index prohibitorum, a list of words drawn up by the Local Government Association that must not be used when providing information to the public. As a word-haunted liberal I am immediately – and quite properly for a liberal – in […]
Martin McShane: Control
Have some fun with Google. Type in “British Medical Association says yes.” It will give you about 650,000 results. Typing in “British Medical Association says no” gives you nearly 12 million! Of course this is entirely specious, irrelevant nonsense. Or is it? Having crossed the floor from front line clinical practice to full time management, […]
Tony Waterston on climate change and maternal and child health
Connecting four countries by video on a Friday afternoon could be an exercise in technological disaster But with obstetricians, midwives, and paediatricians present at the delivery, a safe and healthy passage was guaranteed, and indeed all went smoothly at the first global conference on climate change and maternal and child health held at the Royal […]
Becky Freeman: Is an iPhone good for your health?
Unless you intentionally block out all pop culture and media from your life, you’ve likely seen more than your fair share of Apple promotions. From the dancing silhouettes in iPod ads, to laptop product placement in tv and film, and the overhyped media launches, much has been written about the marketing prowess of Apple and […]
Stephen Ginn: NHS Summary Care Record
People living in London and four other strategic health authorities are currently receiving information in the post about the rollout of the NHS Summary Care Record (SCR) system. SCR is part of the NHS Care Records System, a large UK government IT project which aims for more effective sharing of patient records between NHS services. […]
Behrooz Astaneh on a scientific embargo
A recent email from a friend of mine triggered me to write a post on the WAME forum about a relatively old scientific embargo issue. Some days ago one of my friends who is an orthodontist asked me to help him to submit one of his articles in the related field to a reputable journal. I suggested […]
Jon Brassey on the TRIP database
Searching for clinical information isn’t easy, I know, I’ve been doing it on an almost daily basis for over ten years. I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at searching across a number of clinical databases, I even helped create one – the free TRIP Database. But search engines can be a real pain. […]