‘Twas the Monday before Christmas and all through BMA house, Not an editor was typing, nor clicking a mouse. The Christmas issue already hung on the website with care, In hopes festive doctors soon would look there. And a feast of Yuletide delights awaits you. So . . . Banish all thoughts of diets until […]
Christmas Appeal 2014: Gibson Chijaka—I cannot hold back my joy
My name is Gibson Chijaka, and for the last two years I have endured dozens of nauseating tablets every day. Today, I am so happy and cannot hold back my joy; I am cured of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Me with my grandmother, Margaret Kadzere, October 2014. © Stambuli Kim/MSF […]
Khaled E Emam: What are the privacy concerns when sharing clinical trial data?
The principles developed by industry and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have made it clear that protecting the privacy of individuals is a necessary part of any policy to share participant data from clinical trials. But I often get asked: what are we protecting these participants from? In this short piece I will answer this […]
Chris Baker: Bollywood stars should not endorse food of low nutritional quality—but a ban is not the solution
In India, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 5-19 stands at 22%. Tackling this substantial and growing epidemic requires a population level shift away from poor diets and sedentary activity. Such a shift will be more effective if individual lifestyle change is accompanied by upstream modifications that create healthy environments. Sadly, aspirational advertising […]
The BMJ Today: Hidden holiday horrors
Are you ready to switch off the email and settle into some quiet time with family? Switch on the old classic cartoons for the kids and permit them an extra hour of late night Nintendo? The holidays—a time of extra kindness and compassion, a time of safety and comfort, a time when doing good just […]
Shreelata Rao Seshadri: Tracking India’s battle with malnutrition
For several years now, India has been sharply criticized for being one of the most undernourished nations on earth despite consistently high rates of economic growth. So the First Global Nutrition Report released recently by the International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) provides a welcome update on the nation’s progress on key nutrition indicators. […]
Samir Dawlatly: Would I make it through medical school these days?
I specialised at being a university student. I didn’t graduate from medical school until I was 30, for a variety of reasons, despite the fact that I first set foot in the hallowed halls at the age of 19. Only one of those years was spent recovering from illness. Aside from giving me the chance […]
The BMJ Today: All I want for Christmas is a chocolate Aneurin Bevan
In the past year you may have read BMJ Confidential, the weekly column that grills healthcare professionals on their backgrounds and inspiration, earliest ambitions, career mistakes, and guilty pleasures. For The BMJ’s bumper Christmas issue Nigel Hawkes has reviewed the first 50 editions of this probing column, and a round-up of his findings is published […]
Barbara Bokhour: Patient centered care in an epidemic—why it matters
As the Ebola outbreak in west Africa continues, finding ways to control the epidemic is paramount. In some of the hard hit African countries, we have seen the reluctance of patients to disclose that they are ill and to access healthcare services, citing a fear of the health workers and believing that they will die if they […]
Frank Chalmers: Channel swimming—the great leveller
As soon as I opened The BMJ Christmas paper, Captain Webb’s legacy: the perils of swimming the English Channel, I knew I was in for something different. The Channel fare I’m used to consuming often begins with lazy questions, such as: “If you need a pee in the water, can you get on the boat”’ Answer: “No. […]