Theresa Harding’s long and tedious journey through increasing disability to a diagnosis of a treatable condition is a very moving one. Many readers will be as concerned as the BMJ patient editor Peter Lapsley in his rapid response to the article. […]
Category: Guest writers
The COMET initiative
Systematic reviews of randomised trials are hampered by inconsistency in the patient outcomes assessed across the different studies. Many meta-analyses have to leave out key studies because the relevant outcomes were not reported. Much could be gained if each medical condition had an agreed minimum set of core outcomes that were measured and reported in […]
Joe Collier on: When does “1+1+1 = 1” become “1+1+1 = 3?”
A key component of medicine is the diagnosis. The principle process we use for reaching a diagnosis is to identify the patient’s signs and symptoms and then look for a unifying explanation. Based on the explanation, we then label the disease. So, where an illness has three key features (viz oedema, albuminuria and hypoalbuminemia as […]
K M Venkat Narayan: A case of well-intentioned public health reductionism?
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently released its elegantly titled report, “A Population-Based Policy and Systems Change Approach to Prevent and Control Hypertension” (Washington, DC. National Academies Press, 2010). […]
Emily Spry has a new role model
Over the past month or so, things have been changing fast at the children’s hospital, thanks to my new hero, Professor Tamra Abiodun. […]
Martin McShane: Pathways don’t fit
The buzz word of late has been “pathways.” I guess that has been brought about by Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg’s article in the Harvard Business Review and their book Redefining Health Care. The problem with commissioning along pathways, as one of my General Practice colleagues put it so succinctly, is that they don’t fit. […]
Joe Collier on bad lecturing
Recently I attended a debate on aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. The venue was prestigious as was the audience. There were two speakers and each was given twenty minutes for presentation followed by ten for discussion. The first speaker addressed his title with a talk clearly prepared for the occasion: he entertained, used well-chosen illustrations, […]
K M Venkat Narayan: India’s Emerging Demography: A Tale of Two Health Challenges
Given the sheer size and complexity of the country, it is always impossible to talk of India in any singular or modest sense. India has the largest population of young people, and will add 220 million to her workforce by 2030. Wouldn’t that make India a young and vibrant country? […]
Behrooz Astaneh: the culture of compliments
In a recent blog about guest authorship I mentioned that training plays a crucial role in persuading researchers to follow ethical guidelines in medical publishing. It is true that many researchers do not know the exact meaning of plagiarism. This is especially the case for many non-native English language researchers who do not have sufficient English writing capabilities. But can […]
Olivia Roberts: Somaliland: no aid, no problem?
Somaliland doesn’t exist, officially. But a new paper suggests that there is still a lot for the international development community to learn. Somaliland has been unrecognised under international law since its secession from Somalia in 1991. And the ex-British colony isn’t just subject to the ire of cartographers, as its status as a country-in-waiting means that […]