How would you raise concerns if you felt that clinical practice was below standard in your hospital or surgery and patient safety was being compromised? Do you and your teams have clearly defined ways to report any concerns? The BMJ news reports on a whistleblower who has finally been acquitted of unfair dismissal in a […]
Category: The BMJ today
The BMJ Today: Consent, discrimination, and the liver
What’s the matter with care.data? “It’s consent, stupid,” says Margaret McCartney in her latest No Holds Barred column. A leaflet is not sufficient to convey the complex issues around data extraction and potential re-identification. The same applies for screening, where leaflets are often posted to inform people about the benefits and harms of breast and […]
The BMJ Today: Respect for international doctors
A cluster of recent articles on bmj.com concern the educational performance of international medical graduates compared with UK graduates. The subject has been hotly debated since the 1980s when it emerged that international medical graduates and doctors from ethnic minorities had disproportionately high failure rates in membership exams compared with UK graduates. […]
The BMJ Today: Further adventures of the polypill
Remember the polypill, the combination of several active ingredients in one tablet that promised to revolutionise the prevention of cardiovascular disease? It is a question we have often asked in the offices of The BMJ, the journal in which the idea of the polypill was first mooted in 2003 by Nicholas Wald and Malcolm Law. […]
The BMJ Today: Why does female genital mutilation persist?
A news story by Clare Dyer and a rapid response from the director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, Alison Saunders, keep The BMJ’s spotlight on female genital mutilation. For a long time these horrific practices were downplayed as “circumcision” or “cutting.” But female genital mutilation includes, without medical indication, excision of all or […]
The BMJ Today: GSK and paying doctors to speak on its behalf
On 17 December last year, UK pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline, made a bold pledge. From 2016, the company said, it will stop paying doctors to speak on its behalf or to attend conferences to end undue influence on prescribers. Not only that, drug reps were no longer going to be paid according to the number of […]
The BMJ Today: One way to tackle street drinking
The road in which I live connects a long, shady stretch of green space, with a few benches, and a rather grubby inner London high street that seems to have more than its fair share of 24 hour off licences. When I sit at home looking out of a front window, it is not unusual […]
The BMJ Today: Staying ahead of getting behind
I live in London, a city where most things are fast paced. Coffees are made to go, walking is more of an Olympic sprint, and our time is valued with the precision and importance usually reserved for world leaders. It seems that this isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to city dwellers. David Loxterkamp describes how GPs […]
The BMJ Today: The Tamiflu trials
Today The BMJ is all about neuraminidase inhibitors and open data. Ten articles on the subject of anti-influenza drugs try to establish what we know. In sum: perhaps not enough to justify the huge expense governments worldwide have incurred in stockpiling these drugs, but perhaps enough in terms of improving transparency and providing researchers with […]
The BMJ Today: The glass ceiling, upcoming elections, and big tobacco
As I look around our open plan office, towards where our editor, Fiona Godlee, sits, it would seem that the glass ceiling has been shattered at The BMJ. But, in her personal view, Medicine still needs feminism, Helena Watson argues that there are “legions of feminist issues still left to fight.” […]