A recent incident in the English Premier League has highlighted the conflict of interest for doctors in professional sporting teams. In the final few minutes of a match between Chelsea and Swansea on Saturday 8 August, the first round of the 2015-16 season, with the scores level at two all and the Chelsea team reduced […]
Category: Guest writers
Arthy Santhakumar: Accelerating health equity through equitable access to health information
As we await consensus on the new sustainable development goals (SDGs), we are reminded of what united the international community in the years approaching the millennium—the need to reduce inequality globally. Universal health coverage (UHC) – as put forward by the World Health Organization—was identified as “the single most powerful concept that public health has […]
Anant Bhan: Gender gap in medical education leadership in India
There is a rising welcome trend of women joining medical colleges in India, with female students being comparable in number or even outnumbering male students in many colleges. This trend is much more prominent in neighbouring Pakistan, with estimates that 80-85% of current medical students are women. Women in medicine in India now follow a […]
David McCoy: Divestment is no grand gesture
According to Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, the Guardian’s “Keep in the Ground” campaign to promote divestment from fossil fuel companies is merely a “grand gesture” that can be made only once. At one level, he is right. The financial impact of the Wellcome Trust selling off its shares in fossil fuel companies […]
Artaza Gilani: Pointing fingers: The blame game
Doctors are not infallible; they are human and make mistakes. Occasionally, they know of their mistakes; sometimes, others are aware, while they remain oblivious and other times still, nobody knows that a mistake has occurred. With so many things happening without a clinician’s knowledge, it is not a question of “if”, but “when”, they will […]
Deepak Balak and Enes Hajdarbegovic: Towards harmonisation of referencing styles
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton’s famous quote accurately captures that what is pivotal in science: moving forward by building on work done previously. In terms of scientific writing, proper citing of other works is important in any research article. During our PhD […]
Samir Dawlatly: Will general practice survive?
Just before I completed my training as a GP the 2012 Health and Social Care Act was passed. I had a sinking feeling that general practice wasn’t quite going to be what I thought it was. Up until that time I had been concentrating on passing my exams and assessments and not really taken much […]
Lalitha Bhagavatheeswaran and Joseph Fitchett: That Sugar Film
Australian actor, writer and director Damon Gameau was about to become a father. With a little one on the way and the aim of teaching his future child how to lead a healthy lifestyle, Damon embarked on a 60-day experiment to unravel the truth about sugar. However unlike other films on sugar, which have focused on obvious high […]
Neel Sharma: Medical certification—too many tests?
In May this year, Paul Teirstein and Eric Topol authored a viewpoint on the role of maintenance of certification (MOC) in the States. Their article highlighted the shift from a ten yearly to two yearly MOC approach pointing towards concerns of the value of such frequent retesting. These included the lack of evidence for such a […]
Paul Lord: Too many “tick box” exercises
“L’enfer, c’est les autres”—Hell is others As I progress from trainee to GP, I have taken time to reflect on the process I have been through and I think this saying sums it up. No, I’m not an antisocial existentialist (nor did Sartre intend that the line be interpreted that way), but I have found […]