“So what difference would it make if the NHS was privatised?” asked a medical student this week. We had just been discussing my pet conspiracy theory: that the bad press GPs and other parts of the NHS receive is actually an orchestrated attempt to destabilise the faith of the population in it. The modus operandi […]
Anna Mead-Robson: In defence of paternalism
I recently had the good fortune to attend “Medicine Unboxed,” a two day series of talks and events exploring the links between art and medicine. This year as an audience we were asked to consider the proposal: “Patient choice will be the death knell of the NHS.” What followed was a debate covering a range of […]
Tom Jefferson and Peter Doshi: Thanksgiving special—menus needed at the EMA’s restaurant
It’s hard to imagine a restaurant without a menu, a sheet where the fare is listed, where the ingredients are explained, and limitations are clearly labelled (“not for people with gluten intolerance,” for example). How would we know what to order without a menu? But when it comes to selecting documents on the safety and […]
The BMJ Today: How can you provide healthcare without healthcare staff?
The ultimate consequences of problems recruiting doctors and other healthcare workers have been highlighted this week. A report into Scotland’s worst ever outbreak of Clostridium difficile infection describes how difficulties recruiting staff exacerbated problems at a “dysfunctional” hospital and undermined the quality of patient care. As Bryan Christie writes, the uncertain future of the Vale […]
Will Stevens: Parachuting doctor—life as a UK Army Reserve
In my day job I work as a foundation year 2 junior doctor in Oxfordshire, but for the past seven years, I have also been a serving Army Reservist. Last weekend saw my unit, 144 Parachute Medical Squadron, deploy to Longmoor Training Area in Hampshire on a training exercise called Ex Green Serpent. The weekend was […]
Ted Alcorn: What we don’t know can kill us—confronting gun violence with data
In the United States, the intractable politics of gun violence prevention—and of gun violence itself—rest on a seeming contradiction: we give gun violence far more attention than other causes of preventable death, and yet we have learned far less about it. A single murder will be recorded by dozens of state and federal agencies, can […]
The BMJ Today: Healthcare workers—to strike or not to strike?
Earlier this week, many thousands of NHS staff across England and Northern Ireland took part in a four hour strike in protest at the government’s refusal to implement the 1% pay rise for all NHS staff, as recommended by the independent review body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB). The action was not taken in […]
Eddie Chaloner: Kajaki—playing my part as medical adviser on a war film
It’s not every day that one is asked to get involved in making a major war film, so when I received an email about the Kajaki movie project through the Pegasus Network, I was intrigued. As a former airborne soldier, I’d heard of the Kajaki Dam incident of course, but it didn’t seem like a […]
Richard Smith: What is RRI and was I the wrong Richard Smith?
“I’d like to introduce Richard Smith, who is professor of philosophy at Durham University, an expert on epistemology, and chair of several European committees, who will speak on conflict of interest.” These weren’t the exact words that introduced me at the European Union’s conference on SIS-RRI (Science in Society—Responsible Research and Innovation), but they were […]
The BMJ Today: Tomorrow’s World for doctors, and how hospitals are evicting patients today
I used to love watching Tomorrow’s World as a child to see how scientists thought we might be living in 10 or 20 years. I remember being told that we would be talking to each other over video links, seeing prototype mobile phones, and being shown countless household appliances and robots to take on the […]