Some metaphors have gone beyond cliché to parody, and should never be written in a medical article. They include at the end of the day, level playing field, and moving the goalposts. They are redolent of dodgy business practices. There is no excuse for writing “at the end of the day” instead of the simpler […]
William Cayley: Single payer healthcare—is it here already?
Despite all the hand wringing and arguments over single payer healthcare in American social debates past and present, what most observers seem to miss (but patients and doctors know very well) is that we already have a long established single payer system of healthcare financing in the US—our healthcare is already paid for by the ubiquitous […]
Jane Wells: Meningitis B vaccine—still learning to deal with uncertainty
Another vaccine controversy rears its head, this time meningitis B. The parents of a two year old who died of the disease posted pictures of their desperately ill child online, precipitating a huge response to a petition to the UK Government for all children up to the age of 11 to be vaccinated, which so […]
Jennifer Rohn: Should the meningitis B vaccine be offered to children older than 1 year old?
The advent of quantitative approaches to understanding the patterns of disease ushered in a golden era for public health. From the link between smoking and lung cancer to HIV and AIDS, statistics have been laudably applied to guide societies into tackling life-threatening behavioural practices and infectious diseases. In a nation with a tightly rationed public […]
BMJ Open: Five years old and growing
Five years ago today, BMJ Open appeared on the scene. Conceived as a general medical journal to provide authors a fast, transparent route to publication, BMJ Open could have developed in many different ways. Happily it has developed into a journal we’re proud of, and despite its broad scope, it has grown into a journal […]
Richard Smith: Qualitative research and The BMJ—hidden motives
I’m much amused by the pious positions taken by researchers and BMJ editors in the spirited dispute over qualitative research. The researchers are upset that The BMJ largely excludes qualitative research, and the editors insist that they do so to provide readers with research more likely to be useful to them. Both sides have hidden, […]
Cordelia Galgut: Why are the long term effects of cancer so rarely talked about?
Since being diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer 12 years ago, I have been told countless times that I am lucky to have survived. I hear this pronouncement with equal regularity from my psychologist colleagues, doctors, family, friends, and the world at large. And, of course, I am. But as time has passed, it has become […]
Beryl De Souza: Spirituality and compassion in medicine
Spirituality can be defined as “the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose, and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature and to the significant or sacred” (1). Studies have shown that spirituality and religious beliefs and practices have […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—22 February 2016
NEJM 18 Feb 2016 Vol 374 Testosterone, lust and rage 611 When the great poet WB Yeats reached the age of 67, he noticed a certain waning of his powers and decided to visit a prostitute. It does not seem to have been a very satisfactory encounter for either party (“like trying to squeeze an […]
Tony Delamothe: Dreaming at TED
Each year’s TED conference has a theme, and this year’s, in Vancouver, was Dream. The acronym TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but the annual program of talks long ago slipped these moorings. Before the main conference began there were two sessions devoted to presentations by TED Fellows, a hand picked cadre of rising […]