National commitments to reducing global CO2 emissions are in the spotlight again after the recent United Nations talks. Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published their strongest statements yet about the possible health impacts of global warming. These impacts include increased vulnerability to disease and injury through a variety of mechanisms, including: climate and weather […]
Category: The BMJ today
The BMJ Today: Death talk in India
How viable is a system of “verbal autopsy” to determine future health policy in a country where most deaths occur outside hospitals, are not attended by doctors, and are not medically certified? Meera Kay finds out more about India’s recently completed Million Deaths Study and the training of non-medical field workers to record written narratives, from […]
The BMJ Today: Beyond doing no harm, helping can get tough
Medicine can do great things, but at today’s thebmj.com things look rather bleak. Nine out of 10 people who are transferred to hospital with cardiac arrest don’t survive to discharge. Some argue that most of these ambulance transfers should not happen at all; others disagree. It’s not about the cost, as Americans have calculated the savings […]
The BMJ Today: Time to engage with politics and policy
No sooner had I finished reading my colleague’s blog about taking a global view of health, than I found myself reading Jocalyn Clark’s analysis, which questions where the efforts for solutions to global health issues should be focussed. She states her case clearly: good health is interlinked with the economy and the “medicalisation of global health […]
The BMJ Today: Taking a global view of health
Listening to the news here in the UK this past week, you would find it easy to forget that there is a world outside this small island. But visit bmj.com and you get a different perspective, with a range of international stories. First, to the Netherlands, where Tessa Richards describes how Radboud University Medical Centre […]
The BMJ Today: Management of COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common diseases a GP has to manage in their daily routine. The BMJ has recently set a focus on COPD management. Shawn D Aaron draws attention to the fact that patients with COPD are prone to acute respiratory exacerbations, with a possible detrimental effect on […]
The BMJ Today: The complexity of medical jargon
Up to this day, I’m still often asked by friends when I am going to become a specialist, considering I am “just” a GP. It remains difficult for lay people to understand and acknowledge that GPs master a trade of their own, just like hospital specialists, and are not just doctors who didn’t pursue any […]
The BMJ Today: What do walnut whip, the Carpenters, and Candy Crush have in common?
Walnut whip, the Carpenters, and Candy Crush are just some of the guilty pleasures to which doctors have admitted when filling in our questionnaire for BMJ Confidential. This week it is the turn of Louis Appleby, who was national director for mental health from 2000 to 2010, and for offender health from 2010 to 2014. […]
The BMJ Today: The unanswered questions on Scotland’s day of reckoning
Today, the people of Scotland will cast their landmark vote on whether to break away from the UK and become an independent nation. By this time tomorrow, they will have unequivocally answered the single burning question: “Yes” or “No.” But in medical circles, a raft of deeper questions about the potential impact on healthcare will remain […]
The BMJ Today: Profanities and protests in public health
Public health has become heated, with the fiery debate over e-cigarettes pushing one public health director over boiling point, and public health leaders across Europe becoming incensed by changes at the European Commission. As Gareth Iacobucci reports, John Ashton, the president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, described a supporter of e-cigarettes on Twitter […]