On Tuesday 13 October, while on holiday off the beaten track on the tiny Greek island of Amorgos, I heard that a boat of refugees had landed for the fourth time this year, bringing the total number of refugees who have landed here in 2015 to about 250. At about 17:30, George Alahouzos, a builder and volunteer with […]
The BMJ Today: The best place in the world to die
• The UK is still officially the best place in the world to die, having once again topped the rankings in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Quality of Death Index. In an editorial, John Hughes, director of the UK charity Sue Ryder, discusses how the UK got to the top in palliative care, and what needs […]
Ted Alcorn: America’s daily routine of gun violence
Speaking hours after another high profile mass shooting—this one perpetrated at a community college in Oregon by a young man who shot 18 people, killing nine, before shooting and killing himself—President Obama seemed to be at the end of his rope. On at least 10 previous occasions, he had stood behind the podium emblazoned with […]
Edward Wernick and Steve Manley: Meaningful patient collaboration—a mountain to climb?
In early September we arrived at the King’s Fund HQ in Cavendish Square to be welcomed to their new Collaborative Pairs Programme, designed to bring together 12 pairs from across the country—each made up of a healthcare professional and a patient or patient representative—to work on a shared challenge facing their local health system. The […]
Richard Smith: How public health moralists are promoting harm from tobacco and helping the tobacco industry
David Sweanor, a Canadian lawyer who has many times successfully sued the tobacco industry, believes that those who instinctively react against e-cigarettes on moral grounds are making a bad mistake. We all, he says, have the fast form of thinking that is often morally driven, but when it comes to ways of reducing harm from […]
The BMJ Today: China, philanthropy, statistics, Minerva, and what your patient is thinking
• In his acclaimed weekly blog, Richard Lehman highlights a cluster of articles on healthcare in China. Acute kidney injury seems to be an emerging problem in China as many traditional herbal products may contain nephrotoxic plant substances, with more than 70% of patients giving a history of possible toxic drug ingestion. • Peter Sandercock, featured in the […]
Roger Kneebone and Sally Frampton: Looking back through the keyhole
A surgical generation has passed since the introduction of keyhole surgery in the late 1980s. In that time the landscape of surgery has changed beyond recognition. In less than three decades, minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery has moved from being a controversial and contested experimental approach (generating all the debate and opposition which innovations usually entail) […]
The BMJ Today: Global health, socioeconomic differences, and other matters
• To achieve universal health coverage by 2030, as required by UN Sustainable Development Goals, primary care must be strengthened in middle and low income countries. Educational resources and decision support tools for primary care workers in these settings are critically needed. In an editorial, Fairall and Walsh argue that educational materials must be developed in […]
Richard Smith: How global health can help the NHS
Africa has 25% of the global health burden and 2% of the health workforce. In contrast, North America has 2% of the health burden but 25% of the health workforce. This is the inverse care law (those who need healthcare the most get the least) on a gargantuan scale. And now the US is trying […]
The BMJ Today: The diesel scandal and breast cancer
• Paul Wilkinson and Andy Haines call for consequences to the Volkswagen diesel scandal in an editorial. Perhaps the lesson from the Volkswagen episode is not just whether manufacturers will comply with the legislation aimed at cleaning an inherently polluting fuel source. It may be time for society to commit to a decisive break with fossil fuel […]