NEJM 20 Feb 2014 Vol 370 699 This week, the NEJM is big on bevacizumab. Amongst the crowd of mabs, this is one of the best known: Avastin is a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against vascular endothelial growth factor-A which has been on the market since 2004. It has had its ups and downs, and […]
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Pogo) Manica Balasegaram makes a number of excellent points in his recent post, but his conclusion that “the system is broken” only addresses part of the problem. I read the piece at the MSF website on “Looking for alternative models” with interest, but I do not […]
As the world mourns the loss of the exceptional talents of Philip Seymour Hoffman, perhaps one fitting tribute to his passing from a suspected drug overdose would be to focus on how such deaths can be averted in the future. Such a focus means shedding a light on ways in which US drug policy—not uniquely, […]
The Goldfinch, the eagerly awaited third novel of Donna Tartt, featured on many of our Christmas reading lists. As I devoured this wonderful repositioning of the Dickensian novel into the 21st century—with drug consumption taking the place of gin palaces—little did I imagine that it would also provide a fascinating prelude to my annual visit […]
Each patient’s story matters. It tells us who the patient is, and how he or she came to the present point or predicament. The story gives nuance, meaning, perspective, and context to all the medical information and data points that each patient presents. The story introduces us to the patient as a person. Beyond our […]
In the wake of the 50th US Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, published last week, and in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, whose birthday it was this week, I thought I’d tell you a tobacco tale so absurd and fantastical it can’t possibly be true. Except it is. Before I lived there, I […]
A recent BMJ article by one of the authors of this post (SW), argued the need for universal mental health checks in schools. This personal view stemmed from a wider collaborative research project (SW and KD), which explores the school as an effective site for early identification and intervention in mental health. The response to […]
An impromptu in hospital video by a 15 year old took healthcare social media by storm last week. Posted on Forbes.com on Thursday, by the evening it was in the top 25 most popular on the entire Forbes site, with active discussions on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Late on Friday it peaked at #3—on all […]
NEJM 23 Jan 2014 Vol 370 301 It’s hard to think of two places less alike than the icy expanses of Alaska and the hot claustrophobic depths of a South African gold mine. But back in the 1960s, people who huddled for warmth in Alaska often spread tuberculosis among themselves, and a randomised trial showed […]
We’d hoped evidence based medicine (EBM) would improve patient oriented outcomes and clinical processes, but some fear the “EBM” movement is broken. However, it may not be just “EBM” as a movement that is broken—I am starting to wonder more and more about clinicians’ willingness or ability to apply evidence in practice, when it runs […]