David Haslam, chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, anticipated a difference of opinion as he addressed his audience at the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference last week. He knew that the audience would bring it up eventually, so he went head on into the controversial NICE guideline that lowered the threshold for cardiovascular […]
Emma Parish: Risky Business 2014—I choose to be optimistic
Leaving the Risky Business event I was abuzz with enthusiasm to “choose my attitude,” “listen to the right people,” and treat patient safety “like lives depend on it.” However, it was not all buzzwords, tweeting, and chatting with celebrity speakers. It was a packed day, with lots of emotive content and key messages to change […]
Desmond O’Neill: Ageing, astronauts, and organists in Rotterdam
“Le frime” is an almost untranslatable French word for doing something that seems superfluous for the fun of it. It is as good a term as any for the opening ceremonies of our European Union Geriatric Medicine Society conferences. These reflect how individual nations put their best foot forward for guests. While the content may at […]
Jocalyn Clark: Why has Bangladesh had such success in improving sanitation, but not neighboring India?
Much has been made recently about the appalling rates of open defecation in India, a country that has on other development indicators shown stunning successes. Almost 600 million people in India defecate in fields, forests, bodies of water, or other open spaces rather than in closed latrines or toilets—that’s more than 10 times the number […]
The BMJ Today: Management of COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common diseases a GP has to manage in their daily routine. The BMJ has recently set a focus on COPD management. Shawn D Aaron draws attention to the fact that patients with COPD are prone to acute respiratory exacerbations, with a possible detrimental effect on […]
Dan Bloomfield: Sometimes patients could use a dose of nature, but how could it be prescribed?
This blog is part of a series on sustainable healthcare, which looks at health, sustainability, and the interplay between the two. The blog is coordinated by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare and shares ideas from experts across the healthcare field. Doctors generally understand that exercise is good for you. They also realise that isolation is […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—22 September 2014
NEJM 18 September 2014 Vol 371 1100 The way I have ureteric colic is so classical that just watching me sweat and groan is enough for anyone to make the diagnosis, even without the haematuria on the dipstick. I see the same thing all the time in out of hours primary care patients, and generally […]
The BMJ Today: The complexity of medical jargon
Up to this day, I’m still often asked by friends when I am going to become a specialist, considering I am “just” a GP. It remains difficult for lay people to understand and acknowledge that GPs master a trade of their own, just like hospital specialists, and are not just doctors who didn’t pursue any […]
Hugh Alderwick: The ups and downs on the road to health service improvement
Parallels between the successful transformation of the Veterans Health Administration (VA) in the United States and the changes needed in the NHS in England have been made for a number of years. But recent troubles at the VA offer some important lessons for the NHS in the future, as explored in a roundtable discussion held […]
Richard Smith: Is it time to stop using the word poverty in Britain?
Is poverty yet another word that is so misunderstood we should stop using it—at least in Britain? John Lanchester, a friend of mine, argued so in the Observer. Can he possibly be right? Lanchester doesn’t seem to be arguing that we should stop using the word poverty when we mean “absolute poverty.” When the Millennium Development […]