Today is the 228th day of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. A year ago I would not have believed anyone who told me that I would be in the middle of an Ebola outbreak in January 2015. A confirmed Ebola case in West Africa never crossed my mind. Even in May of last year, […]
The BMJ Today: Working all hours and alcohol use
You would have thought that working long hours would leave people with little time left for an after work drink, but according to this meta-analysis by Virtanen and colleagues, people who have long working hours are at higher risk of alcohol use. Editorialist Cassandra A Okechukwu says that the findings of this study add impetus to further […]
Sandesh Kotte: Reviving the public health system in Telangana, India
The first budget for India’s newly formed state, Telangana, was presented amid a lot of hype and media attention. A cursory look at the budget shows that the allocations reflect the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) party’s promises made in their election manifesto. From the waiver of farm loans, to creating a drinking water grid, to making Telangana […]
The BMJ Today: Polling day
Tuesday is the day we change our weekly UK poll, which enables us to promote the new topic in the weekly print issue (Tuesday is also press day). Our current one asks if doctors should encourage patients to record consultations, linked to a head to head article published last week. At the time of writing, […]
Christmas Appeal: The 12 days of constructing an Ebola management centre
Sunday: As soon as you touch down in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Ebola hits you—or the awareness of it. Health forms to fill in, chlorine handwashes before you even enter the terminal building, zapped with a temperature gun before you step outside. Public health messages and precautions continue throughout the city: big posters announcing that “Ebola is […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—12 January 2015
NEJM 8 Jan 2015 Vol 372 113 A vaccine that works really well is the best kind of medical intervention. But a vaccine that gives partial protection is a headache. Sanofi Pasteur has developed a tetravalent vaccine which is 60.8% protective against symptomatic dengue in children in Latin American countries where dengue is endemic. It […]
The BMJ Today: My mum and Richard Smith
Yesterday my mum, who died of cancer in February 2007, would have been 91. I’m not an expert on death and so do not know whether hers was “good” or not, but I’ll never forget the last six months of her life, when we knew she was dying and had to make the most of […]
Mike Smeeton: How to achieve a good death
Two nurses from our Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice were interviewed recently by Paddy O’Connell for his Broadcasting House programme that airs on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday. The reason for the interview, which you can listen to here, was to talk about a very topical conversation which has been taking place following Richard Smith’s blog in […]
Ted Willis: Consequences of the “John Wayne” contract (“A GP has to do what a GP has to do”)
Why is general practice unpopular, with low morale, falling applications for training, and—according to some experts—poor overall performance? I have worked as a GP for over 25 years and it is clear to me that this is an inevitable result of the way we are paid mainly according to capitation, rather than by item of […]
Shinjini Mondal: Reframing the challenge of urban slums from Cape Town to Mumbai and beyond
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit South Africa and learn about the health system in Cape Town and the health issues of Khayelitsha, an informal (and notorious) township in Cape Town. I was part of the 2014 Emerging Voices for Global Health group of young health systems researchers, who were attending the third Global […]