2015 is looking like it could be a watershed year for global health. As the United Nation’s millennium development goals come to fruition, and we move towards a post 2015 sustainable development goals model, there will no doubt be much reflection on where we’ve collectively succeeded—and failed. There has been much talk in recent years about […]
The BMJ Today: Latest news on statins data and the UK government comes under fire (again)
News Statins: The Cholesterol Treatment Trials Collaboration plans to produce tabulated results of all side effects recorded in 30 randomised controlled trials of statins by the end of this year. Rory Collins, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, does not expect the results to “alter the evidence,” which he says strongly favours […]
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch: The United Nations general assembly special session on drugs in 2016
In April 2016, representatives of the world’s nations will gather to evaluate drug policy in a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS). While prohibitionist policies are still the norm, a rising tide of voices are demanding evidence based responses that respect human rights, promote public health, and reduce crime. Voices for reform reached the […]
The BMJ Today: FGM, GULP, and #NoMoreGames
ANALYSIS Too much technology: The BMJ’s overdiagnosis theme begins today with Bjørn Morten Hofmann, who argues that we are medicalising ordinary human conditions, and we need to rethink our reflex use of health technology. […]
Tushar Garg: India needs to teach its doctors more about the care in healthcare
I was taking a patient’s blood pressure in a clinic when I heard one woman—who was poor, uneducated, and a first time attendee there—being asked a question by a resident doctor. When the patient kept murmuring something inaudible, perhaps trying to remember, the resident told her to return when she knew the answer to the question. […]
Richard Smith: Learning about alcohol problems from a taxi driver
When journalists arrive in a country at war their learning usually starts with taxi drivers. They see and hear a lot. They know the dark side of life, particularly those who drive at night. I learnt a lot from the taxi driver who picked me up at 5.45 this morning. I was his last job […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—16 February 2015
NEJM 12 Feb 2015 Vol 372 601 A couple of months ago I went all Edgar Allen Poe about clones in the bone marrow—clones, bones and groans in fact. Watching the processes that lead up to myeloproliferative disaster is like watching evolution on fast-wind, a point well made in an editorial about this first study […]
The BMJ Today: Sugar, HRT, and a neonate with a rash
• There are a number of responses to The BMJ’s latest investigation into links between public health scientists and food companies. Michelle Harvie and Louise Gorman say, “Industry funding is an inevitable consequence of limited government research funds. In addition it is useful for academia to link with industry as this allows research findings to […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Say “Aaaaaaah”
We may not know what the first spoken word was, but we can be pretty sure that the first uttered sound (Greek φώνημα) was a phoneme, a unit of sound that cannot be analysed into smaller units. English has 44: 24 consonantal sounds, 12 pure vowels (seven short, five long) (see picture, below), and eight […]
Neel Sharma: Personality traits—a neglected area of research in medical education
My first admission whilst writing this correspondence is that I am no expert in the field of psychology. I undertook training in psychiatry during my junior years but this only gave me a brief snapshot into people’s mindset. In medical education I note an ever increasing rise in innovation. From the introduction of the OSCE, […]