I can’t think of a time when the machinery of government has had to work harder. Austerity is a tough call for everyone. Looking out of the windows of NHS Providers’ offices I can see the home of HM Treasury, where the number crunchers, the money men and women, and the purse string holders hang […]
Damian Roland: The power of social media to help clinicians and patients
In a pub in Dublin in 2012, Mike Cadogan, an Australian emergency physician coined a term that would take social media by storm. Free Open Access Meducation (FOAM) and its accompanying hashtag #FOAMed would become synonymous with the output of enterprising emergency and critical care doctors. They would write blogs on anything from procedural techniques […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Adam’s navel
Zeus one day, having nothing better to do, released two eagles from the easternmost and westernmost edges of the world. Flying at the same speed, they met over Delphi, where the god dropped a stone and proclaimed it the centre of the earth or omphalos. Some have suggested that the stone was hollow and that […]
The BMJ Today: The active role clinicians can play in tackling society’s inequalities
Major update to HIV treatment guidance The World Health Organisation has released guidance which would dramatically affect the threshold at which patients with HIV are offered antiretroviral medication. At present, highly effective medications are routinely offered when the immune system shows signs of decline. The new guidance suggests that these medications should be offered from […]
Linda Kenward: Patients must be helped to feel safe in a healthcare setting
Doctors generally know about patient safety, how to undertake safe procedures or recognise unsafe practice and many doctors raise concerns over unsafe environments. It is important to doctors that they can offer safe and effective evidence based care. I have never really doubted that hospitals were a safe place, even if the care that was […]
Arthy Santhakumar: What makes the new global goals different?
The end is in sight. Or more accurately the beginning. Following three lengthy years of negotiations, we have a new (and improved) sustainable development agenda for global action—The Global Goals. The world has agreed on our global priorities, and only time will tell whether we can hold—and be held—to our promises. […]
Sara Bennett and Kabir Sheikh: How the new global goals can help drive systems to address health challenges better
The fact that the sustainable development goals have only one solitary goal for health has been criticised by many with concerns that it signals a new more diluted and less ambitious era in global health. We disagree. We believe that the sustainable development goals promise a significant improvement for global health over what went before. […]
The BMJ Today: Spotlight on Liam Smeeth, professional misconduct, and improving research publication
• Our latest BMJ Confidential casts the spotlight on Liam Smeeth, a GP and professor of clinical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). He says that doing a masters degree in epidemiology at the LSHTM was his best career move: “On the first morning I sat down between a woman […]
Shreelata Rao Seshadri: From MDGs to SDGs—do global goals contribute to health equity?
The era of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came to an end on 8 September 2015, and a new era in global milestones have been launched with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In India, most of the MDG targets were not achieved; and this raises the question: what role do such goals play in achieving better […]
Mona Nasser: How can research publication be improved?
The first day of the EQUATOR/REWARD conference coincided with the publication of the most recent article on reducing waste in research—“increasing value and reducing waste in biomedical research: who’s listening?” The paper explores how different stakeholders responded to the call for “reducing research waste.” This initiative started with a short paper by Iain Chalmers and […]