The ICARE4EU project wants to improve the care of people who are suffering from multiple chronic conditions. It will describe, analyse, and identify innovative integrated care models for people with multimorbidity in 31 European countries, and aims to contribute to the more effective implementation of such models. During the project (which runs from 2013 to […]
The BMJ Today: Editor’s delights
Self prescribing among doctors is legal and commonplace, but its potential problems have been recognised for many years, and regulators are increasingly taking a dim view, writes BMJ Careers editor Tom Moberly in a feature. He reviews the concerns of self prescribing as reflected in guidance from medical authorities around the world, advising doctors against […]
Jeffrey Aronson: Happy 50th birthday, Yellow Cards
To London, to celebrate 50 years of the Yellow Card scheme. The scheme, which was started by the erstwhile Committee on Safety of Drugs (CSD), and is now run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), allows health professionals and patients to report suspected adverse drug reactions to medicines, either manually, on a […]
Alison Cameron: NIHR INVOLVE—changing landscapes
I have been attending a great many healthcare conferences of late—to the extent that they have rather merged into one. A common thread running through all of them has been the claims of varying degrees of co-production and patient centredness. As a long term patient, who has spent many a year occupying the “patient corner” […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—8 December 2014
NEJM 4 December 2014 Vol 371 2227 “We need to remember that these drugs also have toxic effects, they are enormously and inappropriately expensive, and they haven’t cured anyone yet. It is premature to be opening the victory champagne bottles.” Yes, this editorial refers to a new drug class for cancers—the ALK inhibitors. But it […]
The BMJ Today: Male circumcision and medical suicides
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that doctors start telling uncircumcised sexually active teenage boys they can reduce their risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted disease if they have the surgery. The draft proposal also applies to adult heterosexual men and for expectant parents as they decide about newborn circumcision. […]
Vaibhav Bagaria: Of God’s “own men”
Recently, the medical fraternity of India has been in the spotlight on various accounts. While the highest court of the country proclaimed that medical professionals were “agents of god,” and that they should not engage in striking; another high court in the country informed and “ruled” that “all of us have suffered at the hands of doctors.” […]
Khaled E Emam: Towards standards for anonymizing clinical trials data
Although we are still at the early stages, manufacturers are starting to make individual participant data (IPD) from their clinical trials available. One of the key issues that has to be addressed is how to deal with the privacy question. If clinical trial data are anonymized, then it can be shared without having to go […]
Ben Gibbison: “Well, it’s the NHS . . . what do you expect?”
A few years ago, I was climbing in the Indian Himalaya. After driving to the road head, we walked for four days to our base camp. There, one of our group suffered with high altitude cerebral oedema. We carried her back down the valley for 12 hours until we reached the road head and found a […]
Christmas Appeal 2014: Benjamin Black on Ebola through his eyes
When I begin each day I feel like I know what to expect. I have been in and out of west Africa since June, and watched this sad story developing both as a direct witness on the inside, and as an observer from afar when back home. In the Ebola treatment centre where I work, […]