Depending on your world view, our obsession with food at Christmas (witness packed supermarket aisles, and the acres of menu ideas churned out by newspapers) is either a glorious, well deserved indulgence or evidence of an obscene festival of gluttony. Come January many of us will have embarked on body sculpting diets. Before you do, […]
Helen Morant: How should doctors look at patients?
When health professionals talk about patient engagement, we express ideas of listening to patients’ voices, understanding their priorities, and changing our treatment models and priorities to focus on theirs. We should treat (in both senses of the word) patients more like people and less like objects we control. We should stop dehumanising patients. I was […]
Emma Spencelayh: To FT or not to FT—that is the question. Or is it?
As part of the Health Foundation’s work on analysing the controversial decision to prohibit the proposed merger of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Bournemouth & Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, we’ve been grappling with what the role of foundation trusts really is in an ever changing system. […]
The BMJ Today: “Your husband can donate his tools” and other Christmas highlights
What do you do if you have to treat a very sick child in intensive care whose parents do not speak English—and there are no human translators available? What do you do when presented with any seemingly insoluble situation in this day and age? Naturally, your first port of call is Google. But can you […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Creating health—the emerging principles
The Creating Health Collaborative was formed to understand why, despite their potential, broader definitions of health remain only a fringe of health innovation. In today’s post, I am sharing their first report (opens a PDF) and have reproduced below an edited version of what the Collaborative thought were the emerging principles for creating health. We […]
Anne Gulland: Is it okay to cry in front of patients?
This was a question I put to members of doc2doc, The BMJ’s community site. The idea was sparked by an obituary (yet to be published) of a respiratory physician who told a junior colleague not to be embarrassed to display a “red eye” to patients from time to time. As I considered this doctor’s words […]
Global Health Film initiative: I Am Breathing
Mobile phone company: “Hello sir, I hear you are wanting to disconnect. Can we ask why sir?” Neil: “Because I’m dying.” Phone company: “Would it make a difference if we threw in an extra three months for free?” Neil: “If you can do that sunshine, then you are a better bloke than all of my […]
Siyi Yu: China is speeding up the opening of the medical service market
Recently, a notification was released by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission and business supervision department announcing that the establishment of wholly foreign owned hospitals is allowed in seven provinces and municipalities, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan. The approval rights are decentralized to the provincial level. This bold move is a notable […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—15 December 2014
NEJM 11 December 2014 Vol 371 OL The clones! The clones! There is something of Edgar Allen Poe about this study, which describes how “clonal hematopoiesis with somatic mutations is readily detected by means of DNA sequencing, is increasingly common as people age, and is associated with increased risks of hematologic cancer and death.” “Heh, […]
The BMJ Today: Idiotic men and socialism
No, that isn’t the latest political outpouring from Russell Brand—it’s the theme of two recently published papers in The BMJ. Authors in Australia wanted to find out if the meme “armchair socialist” held any weight. You know the type—those people who tweet with fervour from their sofas during Question Time, but seem to be fully […]