The RSM’s Global health and human rights film club launched on 8 September 2011 with a screening of director Mark Hopkins’ Living in Emergency. Filmed in the war zones of Liberia and Congo it follows four volunteer doctors providing emergency care under the aegis of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The film’s urgent title is borne out […]
Category: Uncategorized
Peter Lapsley: Misleading media
Surveys regularly show that whereas (approximately) 80% of people who have not used the NHS in the previous five years believe it to be dreadful, 80% of those who have used it praise it highly. The reason for so extraordinary a disparity is clear. Non users believe the popular media’s stories about the NHS, and […]
Research highlights – 9 September 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Andrew Burd: Karma
Karma is a word that has distinct cultural meanings and can relate to spiritual or more secular events. Whatever the context, the general meaning concerns actions and consequences. After the devastating earthquake in Sichuan, China in 2008 it was an acknowledged faux pas for Sharon Stone to relate the death and destruction to “bad karma” over the […]
Research highlights – 2 September 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Stephen Ginn: Metaphors in medicine
Metaphors are widely used by both healthcare professionals and lay people when talking about matters of health. Despite this their role is largely unrecognised. This is a shame, I feel, as they can have a powerful effect on the practice of medicine and the experience of illness. A metaphor is a way of understanding and […]
Research highlights – 19 August 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Stephen Ginn: Whither the riots? A theory digest
Last week’s riots took place across different nights in multiple cities and involved no one ethnic group. The reasons behind them are complex and a unifying theory is likely to be evasive. Many of the explanations for the riots have been made to fit around already established political agendas. The left has focused on deprivation […]
Peter Lapsley: Effecting behavioural change
It seems unlikely that many of the BMJ’s readers are able to listen to Radio 4 between 8.30 and 9.00 am on a weekday, and even less likely that they could find time to read a 96 page paper by the Institute for Government, signposted on the Today programme a week or so ago, although its […]
Vasiliy Vlassov: Russian women’s reproductive rights in grave danger
According to current Russian law, women can ask for an elective abortion up until 12 weeks of pregnancy. Between 12 and 22 weeks, an abortion can only be made on the basis of medical or so called “social” indications laid out by the government. Over the years, the government has dramatically decreased the number of reasons that […]