The road to Donetsk from Kramatorsk, the last city in mainland Ukraine before the internal border, is beautifully lined with frosted trees. But its beauty belies the harsh reality of actually reaching Donetsk. It is not a simple journey, as I discovered on a recent trip in January. Only one road crosses the so called […]
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Christopher Cox: What Brexit means for employment law
In June a referendum will decide whether or not the UK should exit the European Union. If we decide to leave, what might be the implications for employment law? It’s worth reminding ourselves that the EU has been the source of many employment rights, including working time, work-life balance, key areas of equality including equal […]
Aser García Rada: Time to move forward after five years of the current anti-tobacco law in Spain
Spain has been at the forefront of the fight against smoking for many years. Today (25 February) the National Committee to Prevent Smoking (CNPT), the Spanish Medical Colleges Organization (Organización Médica Colegial), and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (Institut Catalá d ́Oncología) have organised a discussion session with representatives from the main political parties to […]
John Middleton: Why is there acute hunger in the UK and what is to be done about it?
Every day family doctors face the struggle of being custodians of entitlement to food bank help and backstops for the failures of the welfare system, while at the same time wanting to do their best for their patients, which in extreme cases means getting them something to eat. This same uncomfortable tension is played out […]
Patrick Cullen: Co-design for vulnerable patient groups—transforming patients’ experiences
Recently I attended a conference at the King’s Fund that focussed on transforming patient experience, particularly the experience of vulnerable patient groups. To me, the day felt as much like a call to action as a celebration of good practice. Hearing from Catherine Carter, a mother with learning disabilities and Asperger’s, about the distressing experiences of […]
George Thomas: Diabetes mellitus—the need for better terminology
Diabetes is a global health concern. However, the term “diabetes” connotes archaic concepts and needs to be reviewed. The ancient Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia is often recorded as the first person to use the term “diabetes” (meaning “excessive discharge of urine”) in the first century CE. Later, the word “mellitus” (sweet) was added by Thomas Willis […]
Mona Nasser: How can research publication be improved?
The first day of the EQUATOR/REWARD conference coincided with the publication of the most recent article on reducing waste in research—“increasing value and reducing waste in biomedical research: who’s listening?” The paper explores how different stakeholders responded to the call for “reducing research waste.” This initiative started with a short paper by Iain Chalmers and […]
Kiran Thapa: Blossoming health services research in Nepal—what are the challenges?
I recently did a PubMed search for Nepal, and I found thousands of articles that had been published in different journals across the world. This was a happy moment for me. I carried on searching and found that thousands of articles had been published over recent decades. I pondered for a while, thinking about how […]
Toby Shipway: Zebras in the NT – quiz time
Questions – differential diagnoses please 1. The first patient was a young child who presented with fever, seizures, and decreased consciousness, developing over a 1–2 week period, to a community clinic 150 km south of Katherine. After transfer and evaluation, magentic resonance imaging of the brain showed bilateral thalamic necrosis. 2. The second patient was […]
Kallur Suresh: Psychiatry at the forefront of science
I recently attended the 2015 International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Birmingham. It was one of the largest gatherings of psychiatrists from the UK and many other countries. It attracted around 2500 delegates who came to learn from its scientific programme, present their work, and network with other professionals. I was genuinely impressed […]