It is a pity that I did not see Mark Haran and colleagues recent BMJ research paper, “Single lens distance glasses reduce falls in active older people” before my wife, Liza, and I went on holiday to Egypt in early April this year – a week spent cruising from Luxor to Aswan, to be followed by a few […]
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Emily Spry on crowd control in Sierra Leone.
I haven’t written for a month, but that is certainly not because there hasn’t been anything going on at the children’s hospital in Freetown. Rather, it is the opposite. It is hard to sit and reflect when there is so much going on. I’ll try to write up a few of the things from the past month […]
What we are reading: 28 May 2010
In the BMJ editorial office, we often come across interesting articles, blogs, and web pages. We thought we would share these with you. Some are medical, some techie, and some just general. […]
Andrew Burd on burns research
I have just returned from Balikpapan in Indonesia, where I was speaking at the 14th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Indonesian Association of Plastic Surgeons. Indonesia is an amazing country having over 240 million people. There are just 100 plastic surgeons and two burns centres in this vast and extremely diverse country. On the flight […]
K. M. Venkat Narayan: Indian diabetes census – just don’t count on it!
The Union Health Minister of India, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad recently announced a plan to hold a diabetes census across the country. “We intend to start mandatory testing for diabetes in the age group 25-70 years across the country in the next two years. The idea is to figure out the actual number of the population […]
Andrew Burd: “Are you sure?”
It is that time of year again. May heralds the last few weeks of the medical curriculum, culminating in the final examinations. Over the years at the Chinese University I have seen the examinations become increasingly sophisticated from the perspective of objective educational assessment. […]
What we’re reading: 7 May 2010
In the BMJ editorial office, we often come across interesting articles, blogs, and web pages. We thought we would share these with you. Some are medical, some techie, and some just general. […]
Joe Collier: Denying people assistance in dying is simply cruel
Whatever else, arguments for and against assisted dying must include the notion of cruelty. In my view there can be little more cruel than to decline the request for help in, or advice on, dying from patients of sound mind, who are competent to make decisions, who are suffering unbearably from a disabling disease for […]
David Pencheon: When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race
When I see and hear young people not only speaking, but taking action on the big issues of our time I have hope for the future. When I see doctors do the same, I feel similarly hopeful. Hence, when young doctors and medical students get active, I feel especially optimistic. There are many well known […]
Emily Spry on the launch of the free health care initiative
Yesterday was Independence Day in Sierra Leone, marking the start of the country’s fiftieth year since independence. It was also the launch of the President’s free health care initiative for pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under 5. […]