It’s been a busy couple of years in Hong Kong for the international baby formula companies. As soon as the Department of Health announced it had set up a Taskforce on Hong Kong Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes in June 2010, the industry quickly mobilized to get ahead of any potential for their self-interests […]
Category: Guest writers
Hazim Sadideen: Are surgical experts born or made?
There have been increasing levels of research around the concept of surgical expertise and its development. It’s an intriguing debate, a greater understanding of which will help to drive professional standards and quality of patient care. As pressure on surgeons intensifies due to funding cuts, growing caseloads, and shorter working weeks, the drive to improve […]
Martin McKee: What on earth were the LibDems thinking? The tobacco industry and the party conference
Once, in a very different time long ago, no one would have seen anything wrong. An organisation purporting to represent Britain’s small shopkeepers set up stall at a party political conference, representing the views of its members to members of parliament, local councillors, and other party members. But this time, the decision by the United […]
Marcus Müllner: A talk on relative effectiveness that I never gave
Yesterday I was invited by the European Parliament’s committee on the environment, public health and food safety (ENVI) to give a presentation on “Assessing the effectiveness of medicines in comparison with other treatment options.” Unfortunately the morning flight was cancelled so I didn’t make it. […]
Saleyha Ahsan: Syrian frontline medicine is under fire
Two weeks ago we braced ourselves for US military strikes in Syria. I have been based in a northern Syrian hospital, working under the umbrella of non-governmental organisation Hand in Hand for Syria, and being filmed for BBC Panorama. As an emergency medicine doctor I was integrated into one of the most challenging medical environments […]
Richard Cook: Managing the decline
I was out cycling with a friend recently when he told me about the comments of an ex professional cyclist. When asked about how he enjoyed cycling after his retirement, his reply was, “it’s all about managing the decline.” We chatted about how difficult this must be, to reach the peak of a sport, and […]
Marcus Müllner: Dealing with conflicts of interest in the regulatory decision making process
Conflicts of interest are a wonderful topic: Everybody has them, most believe they don’t, and the more you believe that, the stronger you value judgments about them. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has been repeatedly bashed for various reasons, one being the dangers of biased decision making due to an undue influence of industry. Accordingly […]
Georgios Lyratzopoulos: Overdiagnosis—is informed decision making by patients the way forward?
I enrolled for the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference assuming that the focus would be on cancer screening, but I was thankful that the conference covered every clinical specialty, including paediatrics, psychiatry, and cardiology, as well as surgical specialties and emergency medicine. After all, and as recounted by Jim Guest, it is possible for patients attending the […]
Liu Xu et al: Chinese doctors leaving public hospitals—brain drain or emancipation?
Recently the resignation of Yu Ying, a Chinese female doctor from a famous public hospital has provoked heated discussions among the Chinese netizens. Yu Ying was an emergency care physician at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital before her resignation. She has a Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, with the name, […]
Alison Spurrier on the demise of the Liverpool care pathway
I would cautiously suggest that these days “death and dying” is no longer the taboo subject it used to be. People are aware of their mortality and seem to be giving some thought to their inevitable death. I have spent my adult life working as a nurse. Presently I do agency work. This means that […]