Retrieval registrar was never one of my professional aims throughout medical school. A natural pause in the UK training scheme motivated me into seeking an opportunity to break the NHS bond, temporarily, and head away to experience far away places and different health issues. Retrieving patients in Australia’s Northern Territory was not the obvious choice, […]
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Ian Franklin: Doctors, manslaughter, and avoidable harm
The sudden surge in prosecutions of doctors in the criminal courts when patients die is alarming. There is a growing body of opinion that the charge of gross negligence manslaughter is being used inappropriately to prosecute doctors who, in their daily lives, work in an inherently high risk environment. It is generally accepted that deaths […]
David Pencheon: How health professionals, organisations, and systems can invest in a healthy future
Our behaviour is more influenced by our surroundings than we think—it is a response to what happens around us: physically, socially, and culturally. We are shaped by norms more than we shape them. Consequently, when an influential group of people have the chance to re-set norms in visible and newsworthy ways, and where results benefit almost […]
Samir Dawlatly: Healthcare in 2065
I looked down at my left leg. It had been aching for a day or two. Thanks to the laser eye surgery that I had had the previous month, I could see that the left calf was definitely more swollen than the right. I sat back in my chair and reminisced. Back when I was […]
Mihail Călin: Romania’s alcohol policy leaves public to fend for themselves
A woman holding a toddler in her arms falls in a ditch while trying to recover her beer bottle from the ground. She tries to get back up, only to fall on top of her child. Moments later, she leaves her two children (one of whom is now holding his mother’s bottle) on the side of […]
Luca De Fiore and Tom Jefferson: Pills from the world
European regulatory agencies frequently inform doctors and pharmacists about their activities, paying particular attention to pharmacovigilance. The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) started a new information feed on 3 April 2012: “Pills from the world.” Every morning a news item is posted online, but analysis of some of the posted items is thought provoking. AIFA declares […]
Theodora Bloom: Peer review and gatekeeping
Peer review seems to be researchers’ favourite whipping boy. Whenever two or three academics gather together, they tell each other horror stories of the journals, granting bodies and peer reviewers who have failed to recognise the latest great work. My perspective on this may be skewed by a couple of decades spent as an editor […]
Francesco Barbabella and Maria Gabriella Melchiorre: Good practice and e-health technology in multimorbidity programmes
The ICARE4EU project wants to improve the care of people who are suffering from multiple chronic conditions. It will describe, analyse, and identify innovative integrated care models for people with multimorbidity in 31 European countries, and aims to contribute to the more effective implementation of such models. During the project (which runs from 2013 to […]
Sally Norton: Open your eyes to obesity
We know that we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic—and we know it is really difficult to treat. But it’s nigh on impossible to treat if we don’t identify it properly in the first place. Recent research shows that many of us don’t really know, or admit to knowing, how obese we really […]
Anand Bhopal: Alcohol in society—the search for nuance in a fractious debate
Alcohol is a historical part of British culture, and pubs remain central to communities across the country. Yet the same liquor is also responsible for filling A&E departments; absorbing police time; and adversely affecting millions through dependency, addiction, social problems, and disease. Too much of the current discourse on alcohol policy overlooks this spectrum and […]