As readers of The BMJ, there’s a good chance you are familiar with the burden of disease (BoD) approach. BoD is a systematic scientific effort to quantify the comparative magnitude of health loss due to disease, injury, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography for specific points in time. It combines measures of morbidity […]
Category: Guest writers
Jonathan Roos: Let’s hear it for the case report
To date, more than 56 million papers have been published in the scientific literature. Astonishingly, printing out just the first page of each would create a stack almost 6km high—much higher than the Mont Blanc—Europe’s highest mountain at 4,809 metres. Or in man-made terms—stacking London’s Canary Wharf tower 20 times on top of itself or […]
Derek Summerfield: My NHS Trust insists on face recognition software to be sure of who I really am
The other day my NHS Trust sent me notification that I was due renewal of my Disclosure and Barring (DBS) clearance (previously called CRB). I was asked to bring my passport. Presenting myself to Medical HR, I was asked to sit in front of a computer with face recognition technology and my passport placed face […]
Tom Solomon: The untold story of Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine
Most doctors encounter interesting or unusual patients whose amazing stories stay with them forever. I was fortunate to look after the world’s number one story teller, Roald Dahl, as his life was ending in 1990. During my nights on call, he and I would chat into the small hours, and became friends. For decades afterwards […]
Mathias Bonk: Who will become WHO’s new director general?
The nomination deadline for the next director general of the WHO has passed and six of WHO’s Member States have sent in nomination papers for their respective candidates. Three of these candidates, Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sania Nishtar, former Minister for Science and Technology of Pakistan, and Phillipe Douste-Blazy, Chairman of […]
Tong Yongjun: Stop killing Chinese doctors
In less than three months four Chinese doctors have been killed by patients. In one case, a general physician’s 10 year-old child was also stabbed. Violence towards doctors is nothing new in China. The Lancet has been following the trend for years. Almost 50% of Chinese medical staff were insulted during their daily work. The Chinese […]
Pradip Kharya: Delhi’s chikungunya outbreak
In 2006 India experienced one of its worse chikungunya outbreaks, when more than 1.5m cases were reported. The current outbreak in Delhi has claimed at least 15 lives so far, and the city’s hospitals are overloaded because of demand from neighbouring states such as Rajsthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana. […]
David Shaw: Delaying surgery for obese and smoking patients is illogical and unethical
It was recently reported that Vale of York clinical commissioning group (CCG) plans to delay all elective surgery for obese patients for a year until they lose 10% of their weight, and to smokers for six months unless they stop smoking for eight weeks. [1] Both the overall rationale for this policy and the clinical […]
Arthy Santhakumar: The verdict is out on superbugs
A global health peril that demands global action. For only the fourth time in history, a health issue has reached the great political heights of the United Nations General Assembly. Following HIV, non-communicable diseases, and Ebola—antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has taken the grand stage, receiving a standing ovation in the form of a united political declaration which […]
Peter White et al: Releasing patient data from the PACE trial for chronic fatigue syndrome
The PACE trial was the largest clinical trial to date into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also sometimes referred to as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). This randomised controlled trial involved 641 UK patients suffering from CFS and compared the effectiveness of four treatments. It found that when added to specialist medical care (SMC), cognitive behaviour therapy, and […]