Each war revives the clash between the safety of a country’s own citizens and that of its soldiers. The recent Operation Protective Edge, taken by Israel with the objective of restoring calm to its citizens, should be examined by the same standard. Was the presumed political gain worth the soldiers’ loss of lives? Was […]
Category: Guest writers
Paul Teed: Is medical opinion shifting towards support for an assisted dying law?
Over the weekend, the Times published findings from a new survey conducted by Medix, which asked 600 doctors various questions on assisted dying, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. The coverage contrasted the findings with those from a similar Medix survey a decade ago, reported then in The BMJ. But reading the complete data in the new survey […]
Karen Sumpter: Can MRI help make inaccurate prostate cancer diagnosis a thing of the past?
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men; in the UK, it kills over 10 000 men every year, and currently there are over a quarter of a million men living with—and after—the disease. If diagnosed early enough, prostate cancer can often be successfully treated. However, the diagnostic process is far from perfect, and […]
Mayank Singh: The euthanasia debate in India
The case of Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug was a landmark moment for the euthanasia debate in India. Aruna was a nurse working in the King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM) in Mumbai. On the evening of 27 November 1973, Aruna was brutally raped. She survived, but asphyxiation had cut the blood and oxygen supply to parts of […]
Johanna Hanefeld and Richard Smith: Charging for non-EEA migrants’ access to the NHS—who will follow?
The UK government recently announced that it will in future charge migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and foreign visitors a 150% fee for service when using the NHS. This is to recoup the estimated costs incurred when patients from abroad use services without entitlement. Justification for the additional surcharge is to incentivise […]
Bijal Chheda-Varma: Bariatric surgery is unsustainable
Obesity is widely recognised as one of the greatest health threats of the 21st century across the developed world, with about a third of the global population now obese or overweight. While the evidence of the problem is undisputed, there is little agreement as to how to solve it. Many solutions are being brandished about […]
Vijaya Nath: Medical engagement—change or die
More than a year since Robert Francis’s recommendations, and after reports by Don Berwick, Sir Bruce Keogh, and the new Care Quality Commission inspection regime, we are still being challenged to demonstrate that healthcare is first and foremost focused on the needs of the patient. At the same time, there has been a call for the […]
Gitau Mburu: Why communities should care about WHO’s antiretroviral guidelines
A year ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued revised and consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection. These guidelines included a key recommendation to initiate HIV treatment earlier (at 500 CD4 cells/mm³ or less) in order to ensure that people with HIV live longer, healthier lives, and […]
Jack Johnson: My week as a medical journalist
I arrived at the offices of The BMJ on Monday 7 July, expecting to spend the day at a desk reading scholarly articles, which I had little chance of making sense of. I am a sixth form student and spent a week at The BMJ on work experience. My previous encounter with work experience was at […]
Halima Khan: People powered health—one year on
What links a social prescription in Newcastle, a peer retreat in Lambeth, and a neighbourhood network in Leeds? Well, these were three of the six frontline teams in the People Powered Health programme, which finished last year after running for 18 months. The programme—supported by the charity Nesta, along with the Innovation Unit—supported these six health […]