Two nurses from our Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice were interviewed recently by Paddy O’Connell for his Broadcasting House programme that airs on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday. The reason for the interview, which you can listen to here, was to talk about a very topical conversation which has been taking place following Richard Smith’s blog in […]
Category: Guest writers
Frank Chalmers: Channel swimming—the great leveller
As soon as I opened The BMJ Christmas paper, Captain Webb’s legacy: the perils of swimming the English Channel, I knew I was in for something different. The Channel fare I’m used to consuming often begins with lazy questions, such as: “If you need a pee in the water, can you get on the boat”’ Answer: “No. […]
Global Health Film initiative: I Am Breathing
Mobile phone company: “Hello sir, I hear you are wanting to disconnect. Can we ask why sir?” Neil: “Because I’m dying.” Phone company: “Would it make a difference if we threw in an extra three months for free?” Neil: “If you can do that sunshine, then you are a better bloke than all of my […]
Nancy Devlin, John Appleby, David Parkin: Why has the PROMs programme stalled?
In 2009, the English NHS introduced a world leading initiative in the pursuit of quality healthcare: the measurement of patients’ views about their own health became a routine part of the delivery of NHS funded services. In an initiative led by the Department of Health, robust and reliable condition specific and generic (EQ-5D) patient reported […]
Yogesh Jain and Raman Kataria: The pathology of a public health tragedy
Lessons from the Bilaspur sterilization camp The recent deaths of 13 women in India operated on at a sterilization camp in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, has thrown up urgent questions on the delivery of these services. As doctors observing health systems for the poor from close quarters in Bilaspur for the last fifteen years, we are convinced this was […]
Eddie Chaloner: Kajaki—playing my part as medical adviser on a war film
It’s not every day that one is asked to get involved in making a major war film, so when I received an email about the Kajaki movie project through the Pegasus Network, I was intrigued. As a former airborne soldier, I’d heard of the Kajaki Dam incident of course, but it didn’t seem like a […]
Nigel Hawkes: Searching for truth behind the taboos—or how science demystified sex
Serious students of sex, from Krafft-Ebing onwards, have not always had an easy time, possibly because some of them were distinctly odd. A new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London, The Institute of Sexology, explores the world of those brave pioneers through documents, photographs, letters, films, and objects that trace the gradual unveiling of […]
John Illman: Richard Asher exhibition at the RSM
An exhibition celebrating Richard Asher (1912-69), perhaps the greatest medical wordsmith of his generation, opened last week at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. Asher was acclaimed as a superb diagnostician, as well as for his clarity and wit in both the spoken and written word. His 1947 paper in The BMJ, The Dangers of […]
David Wrigley: Like another bad penny?
We have just seen another report from a London based “think tank,” suggesting profound changes to the way the NHS works. These reports seem to turn up with annoying regularity and are often not written with any evidence base to support them, but they do seem to promote the views of organisations that donate vast […]
Mary E Black: Inside the mind of a Member of Parliament
I had the opportunity to listen to a number of MPs explain how they think during the excellent Westminster experience organized by Cumberlege Eden & Partners as part of my NHS Executive Fast Track Programme. I took notes from the MPs—current and recent—whom we met. The session was targeted at senior people in the NHS, […]