SMACCDUB is the conference of young critical care doctors, with a few mature ones thrown in for the mix, and the most energetic I’ve been to in a long time, perhaps ever. In a plenary session I sat on a white sofa drinking a 25 year old Irish whiskey next to Jeff Drazen, the editor […]
For many years systematic reviews have been placed on a pedestal, relatively free from critical scrutiny. Frequently seen as being at the top of the “evidence pyramid” they have been adopted as the main way of assessing the worth of an individual intervention. More recently threats to the pre-eminence of systematic reviews have come from multiple […]
At the rear of the grand London buildings which house the BMA and the BMJ offices, there is a tranquil garden, sheltered by tall buildings and lovingly tended by Daniella Sikora. Over the last two weeks it has provided the backdrop to two early evening lecture sessions on gardening and health, forming part of the […]
A great deal of the current focus in the NHS is on the financial challenges it faces. These are undoubtedly severe, but I think they may be obscuring a problem that is at least as serious: the state of the workforce. There are a number of inter-related components, including poor morale, bullying and looming shortages […]
Notwithstanding the epistemological inconsistency inherent in discussions of “my evidence” vs “your evidence” (after all, if “evidence” is not about an objectively verifiable shared reality, then it’s not evidence”), I appreciate the call by Douglas Badenoch and André Tomlin to “dramatically improve the way important new evidence is communicated to the people who need it […]
In the run up to Evidence Live 2016, we are running a series of blogs by the conference speakers discussing what they will be talking about at the conference. The main job is to care for the patient. Evidence based medicine makes use of an adjectival phrase, “evidence based,” to note that this is a […]
“Mobile is eating the world.” Next June will see the tenth anniversary of the launch of the iPhone. Without a doubt, the impact of the smartphone has been enormous, and for healthcare providers the continued growth in smartphone use has major implications going forward—especially since more than half of patients/consumers now say that they want to be […]
“There are substantial risks for the country’s health service and pharmaceuticals industry,” if the UK votes to leave the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) warns an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Report that analyzed the possible impact of a Brexit on the healthcare sector. [1] To date much of the discussion surrounding Brexit […]
There’s something deep seated within the whole junior doctor angst, isn’t there? Many have joined the bandwagon and converted their angst into a lightening rod for all comers, but peel it apart…and there’s something which is a bit uncomfortable. Something isn’t quite right regarding the relationships between senior doctors and juniors. Yes, the seniors have […]
NEJM 9 Jun 2016 Vol 374 All sorts of AML 2209 Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), New Zealand’s greatest son, said that physics is the only science, and the rest is just stamp collecting. Nowadays physics seems largely about making stuff up, so I feel safer with the stamp collectors. And what wonderful stamps they are finding […]