It was just another day at the primary health centre (PHC) that I work closely with in the south Indian state of Karnataka. I was in the pharmacy of the PHC, discussing the availability of medicines for diabetes and hypertension with the pharmacist. Meanwhile, an elderly woman arrived at the dispensary window along with a small […]
The BMJ Today: A dignified death at last for brain dead pregnant woman
Doctors in Ireland must be breathing a sigh of relief after judges ruled that a brain dead pregnant woman should be allowed to die. The case makes for grim reading. The woman, in her late 20s and 18 weeks pregnant, was declared clinically dead on 3 December after a fall. But doctors refused to comply […]
Christmas Appeal 2014: A silent hunger
I have been in Pakistan for six months, two thirds of the way through my nine month mission. Before working in Pakistan, I had spent some time working in the north of Australia with the Aboriginal community. In the Northern Territory of Australia, there is a big issue with malnutrition in the Aboriginal population, especially in […]
Theodora Bloom: Peer review and gatekeeping
Peer review seems to be researchers’ favourite whipping boy. Whenever two or three academics gather together, they tell each other horror stories of the journals, granting bodies and peer reviewers who have failed to recognise the latest great work. My perspective on this may be skewed by a couple of decades spent as an editor […]
William Cayley: Meeting our patients in the midst of their chaos
“Not again . . . ” The mom with the troubled teen is late for their appointment . . . “Not again . . . ” The elderly widow needs me to explain, one more time, why and how to take her medications . . . “Not again . . . ” The middle aged […]
Samir Dawlatly: How GP practices are funded—between a rock and a hard place
There are many uncertainties about the future of healthcare in the United Kingdom. This is largely because health is inherently political and, unfortunately, appears to be used by politicians to garner votes in forthcoming elections or gain points in opinion polls, without a great deal of thought being given to the consequences and feasibility of […]
The BMJ Today: Parkinson’s disease, broken noses, and the diet wars
Pressure on emergency departments reaches its peak during the winter months, and the festive period puts the cherry on the Christmas cake. Data published last week show that the percentage of patients seen in English emergency departments within four hours was the lowest since records began in 2010 (<90%). In addition to the predicted winter […]
Richard Smith: Treating cardiovascular disease as well as we treat TB and HIV
Globally, about 70% of people diagnosed with tuberculosis and about 40% of those with HIV are treated, but less than 20% of those who have had heart attacks or strokes receive the treatments known to reduce further events substantially, said Anthony Rodgers at the Global Cardiovascular Clinical Trials Forum in Washington earlier this month. Even in […]
David Kerr: Rise of the medical selfie
According to Twitter, 2014 was the year of the selfie. The Oxford English dictionary defines a selfie as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.” Selfies began only a few years ago, but have reached epidemic and global proportions—and a new […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—22 December 2014
NEJM 18 December 2014 Vol 371 2353 Try to make winter bearable by thinking of the joys of late spring, such as seeing laburnum trees in full blossom. But you need to have plenty of garden space for the brief show they provide, and you also need to warn children against their poisonous seeds. This […]