In his brilliant surrealist novel Death at Intervals, José Saramago conjures up a dreamlike, yet all too soon nightmarish, scenario wherein the people of an anonymous landlocked European country simply stop dying. Death, the scythe-wielding skeletal spectre, quite literally goes on strike. She gives up her day job to pursue a romantic, bordering on voyeuristic, […]
Category: Guest writers
Tejshri Shah on the BMJ/MSF appeal
My name is Tejshri Shah and I am the head of the medical unit of Médecins Sans Frontières UK, the Manson Unit. When asked to be a guest blogger for the BMJ and help promote the BMJ Christmas Appeal for MSF, my mind raced back to my first mission and a little boy, who for […]
Julian Sheather on hope and human rights in Zimbabawe
Last week I was in Uganda, speaking at a conference on monitoring the right to health. During the conference I met a fourth year medical student from Zimbabwe, Norman Matara. Norman is a tall, slim, gentle, slightly stooped young man. He does not talk much, but when he does he is thoughtful and softly spoken. He […]
Nicola While on health care and Europe
The run up to the Christmas recess is a traditionally busy time for the European institutions. Last year proved to be no different with a rash of new legislative proposals being released in the pre-festive period. The publication of initiatives on a number of key issues for the medical community encompassing issues as diverse as […]
Chesmal Siriwardhana on science communication
As this blog is built around my personal experiences during the past few months, I would first of all like to introduce myself. I am medical graduate and a medical researcher from Sri Lanka, and I love writing in all its forms: creative writing, journalism, professional writing, etc. […]
William Lee and the “I’m lucky to be alive” patient
In early November 2008 a woman in her 30s who lives alone in London decided that she wanted to die. She was depressed. She felt that she only suffered and caused suffering to others, and that she did not deserve to live. Yet from the outside her life seemed fulfilling and successful. A graduate building […]
Tony Waterston on child health teaching in the occupied territories
Arriving in Ramallah in December from a freezing UK, both the temperature and the welcome were very warm. The purpose was a regular visit to the students on the collaborative Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Al Quds Medical school postgraduate teaching programme on child health, and to run an OSCE for the […]
Richard Smith on the right to health
On first acquaintance the concept of a right to health can seem ridiculous. Why not a right to happiness, beauty, high intelligence, and Arsenal winning the cup every year? The right to health has been questioned legally and on grounds of feasibility and policy, but the Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen answers these questions convincingly […]
Richard Smith on why diabetes envies cancer
Those who campaign on diabetes envy those who campaign on cancer because cancer gets so much more attention than diabetes. Indeed, the diabetes campaigners are very frustrated that diabetes is so consistently neglected. Around 250 million people globally have diabetes, and because of the pandemic sweeping the world that number will increase to 380 million […]
Alison Godbolt on identity cards … invasion of privacy or commonsense?
A few years ago I saw myself as a bit of a defender of privacy. Now I’m slightly older (and wiser?). I wonder whether identity cards – traditionally opposed by “defenders of privacy” – are in fact the way forward to improvements in healthcare. […]