Nearly 15 years ago when I first presented the results of our systematic review on antibiotics for acute otitis media, one paediatrician snarled, “You’re making it too complicated. It’s simple: otitis media is an infection; the treatment of infection is antibiotics.” So that was that. The art of therapeutics could be boiled down to a […]
Category: South Asia
Leslie Shanks: To err is humanitarian
I remember that day as if it were yesterday. It was in the middle of the chaos of the cholera outbreak that followed the refugee influx into Zaire in 1994 at the end of the Rwandan genocide. I was asked to see a young man who was critically ill with congestive heart failure. Kneeling on […]
Soumyadeep Bhaumik’s review of Indian medical papers—16 July 2013
A sudden burst of massive untimely rainfall and the consequent floods in Uttarkhand last month has killed thousands of people and affected millions more. The good news is that there have been no public health disasters, fingers crossed not yet at least. The Uttarakhand floods remind us that the issue of climate change is having […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—15 July 2013
JAMA 10 July 2013 Vol 310 149 Fifteen years ago, JAMA was my favourite journal. Its covers were always beautiful, thanks to M Therese Southgate’s choice of paintings and works of art, and her short essays on each were unpretentious and delightful. The contents then were more clinically relevant than those of the Lancet or […]
Ravikant Singh and Mridul Deka on the rescue effort in Uttarakhand
The recent flash floods in the mountain state of Uttarakhand struck some of the most holy temples in the Himalayas. Pilgrims from all parts of the country were trapped in remote villages of the Himalayan districts. Early in the monsoon season, from the 14 June, there were incidents of flash floods and landslides in the […]
Richard Smith: Case reports in 16th century Europe and China
There is a huge theoretical body of knowledge about the history of the novel, but almost nothing on the history of the medical case report. Gianna Pomata from Johns Hopkins University would like to change that and is writing a book on the history of the medical case report. Last week she gave a talk […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—8 July 2013
JAMA 3 July 2013 Vol 310 46 If you identify people with poorly controlled blood pressure in primary care and introduce a system of intensive telemonitoring run by pharmacists according to a strict protocol, you are bound to get better BP control than if you leave it to “usual care.” But for each individual, the […]
Readers’ editor: Influence beyond the impact factor
The BMJ’s impact and influence should be measured by more than just established metrics such as impact factor. But the new figures, released two weeks ago, are very welcome. The journal’s impact factor rose more than 20% to 17.215. My first thought on discovering this was that a strategic aim to increase the impact of the BMJ’s scholarly content is starting to […]
Sandeep Kumar Panigrahi: The annual health survey in India
The Annual Health Survey (AHS), conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the register general of India, has proved to be a major breakthrough for empowered action group states in India, including Odisha. The objective of the AHS was to yield benchmarks of core vital and health indicators at a […]
Richard Smith: Menstrual regulation and the sacra rosa—escaping religious rigidity
Countries that are strongly Muslim or Roman Catholic find abortion unacceptable, but Bangladesh, a Muslim country, has found a clever way of helping women who might be pregnant and don’t want to be. In Bangladesh induced abortion is illegal unless a woman’s life is threatened. But a woman who has missed a period may in […]