It was the biggest turnout for many a year. In our small coastal town in the north west of England, 5000 of us stood together bare headed for an hour on a magnificently clear but cold November morning. The Salvation Army brass band was muted but played beautifully, and there was pomp and circumstance aplenty. But […]
Christopher Burns-Cox: The Assisted Dying Bill
It does look as if most people now at last want to enable suffering persons of a sound mind and with less than six months to live to be helped to achieve their wish—death, to relieve suffering. And, after the House of Lords voted recently to accept amendments to the Assisted Dying Bill, a change in the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—17 November 2014
NEJM 13 November 2014 Vol 371 1867 “Metastatic melanoma remains just over the border of curability. As we wait and hope for some breakthrough in an agonizingly incremental process, there will be more trials like this one,” I wrote last week about a paper in JAMA. They haven’t been long coming. The two in this […]
The BMJ Today: How can doctors learn about research?
In my previous role at The BMJ, I had the chance to work on Endgames, whose educational content is aimed at helping junior doctors in the UK and around the world prepare for their postgraduate examinations. Apart from case reports and picture quizzes, Endgames also include a series of weekly quizzes called “Statistical question,” which […]
Tackling a pandemic: Is Ebola the definitive lesson?
Until recently, Ebola was rarely heard of in the developed world, but during the last few months, we are receiving such a high volume of daily information on Ebola virus disease (EVD) that this blog would have been different if written a few weeks earlier or later. It is worth noting that all The BMJ […]
Tamasin Cave: NHS England needs to come clean on its spending
Transparency is a much used word in the new NHS. It is the key to safer care, says Jeremy Hunt, and the most important innovation in health, according to NHS England director for patients and information, Tim Kelsey. His boss, Simon Stevens, claims that NHS England has “set new standards for openness and transparency in […]
The BMJ Today: More pay, better care?
Does pay for performance improve health outcomes in certain chronic conditions? The UK has one of the largest schemes in the world—the Quality and Outcomes Framework—and, to date, evaluations have produced mixed results and uncertainties remain. In a recently published research paper on thebmj.com, one international team carefully examine one aspect of pay for performance […]
Sarah Welsh: Egg freezing—does this “insurance policy” offer false hope?
Egg freezing is an up and coming trend among hopeful future mothers—hailed as “the new 30th birthday present for British women,” in a recent Telegraph article. Egg freezing allows women with medical and social reasons to delay having a baby. It may be seen as an “insurance policy” for women who are not in a relationship or […]
David Southall and Rhona MacDonald: More resources are urgently needed to treat Ebola in west Africa
In Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea—the countries most affected by Ebola—the outbreak has, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), resulted in 5160 deaths. In Liberia, a country we have been working in for three years, by 29 October 2014 WHO reported 2413 deaths from Ebola. Two weeks later, on 12 November, […]
The BMJ Today: Happiness, money, and mental health
Opening your curtains to a stunning view of the Scottish Highlands may put a smile on your face, but is it enough to make you change your job? The NHS Highlands is hoping so with its new recruitment programme using picturesque images to recruit doctors to work in remote and rural areas. But Nigel Hawkes […]