Mark Clarfield, an Israeli doctor, writes to his imagined Palestinian colleague. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a real Palestinian doctor living in Canada, writes back. As both yearn for peace, and attempt to show much professional and human compassion, the views expressed about the conflict that is ruling both their children’s lives seem somewhat elusive. Still, a recurring […]
Samir Dawlatly: The slippery slope of general practice
I live at the top of a hill. One winter it snowed after a hard frost, just a thin layer of snow on top of the existing ice. The morning after the snowfall, I jumped into my car, put the radio on, and was into second gear before I knew what I was doing. Better […]
Desmond O’Neill: Elective Dreams
With every elective student that joins our unit, I get a vivid flashback of my own electives. No matter how much water has flowed under the bridge since then, something particularly special endures about these less structured educational episodes. Even if undertaken in a local hospital, the elements of summer holiday, change of routine, and […]
The BMJ Today: Tranexamic acid and inferring significance of treatment effects
Tranexamic acid is a synthetic analog of the amino acid lysine. It is used to treat or prevent excessive blood loss during surgery and in various other medical conditions. An older analogue, epsilon aminocaproic acid, was temporarily withdrawn worldwide in 2007 after studies suggested that its use increased the risk of complications or death. Tranexamic […]
Aser Garcia Rada and Laura Reques Sastre: Fever after a trip to the Caribbean? Think of chikungunya
In Spain we are beginning to attend to a growing number of suspected cases of chikungunya—a disease most of us have never faced before—among patients coming from the Caribbean region. Chikungunya (a Makonde word for “that which bends up”) is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus (tiger mosquito) variety. […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—18 August 2014
NEJM 14 August 2014 Vol 371 601 The usual wisdom about sodium chloride is that the more you take, the higher your blood pressure and hence your cardiovascular risk. We’ll begin, like the NEJM, with the PURE study. This was a massive undertaking. They recruited 102 216 adults from 18 countries and measured their 24 […]
The BMJ Today: Computed tomography—to scan or not to scan?
As reported in the News section today, a group of experts has called attention to the dramatic rise in the use of computed tomography (CT) scanning. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment said that English hospitals carried out almost five million CT scans in 2012-13, a fivefold rise of the numbers […]
Julie Browne: Word counts, words count—how do we want things to be in medical education?
I have just come across a neat little web tool from the New York Times. You can type in any word, and see a line graph showing how frequently it’s been used in the New York Times by year right back to 1860. You can also compare several words simultaneously. It’s a fascinating insight into the degree of […]
Stuart Buck: Are scholars or journalists more to blame when correlation and causation are confused?
News stories about everything from nutrition to epidemiology to family behavior often confuse correlation with causation. Drink coffee, we are told, and you will lower your risk of dying (or perhaps raise it, depending on the week). Get married, and you will have stronger bones. Sophisticated news consumers in the know understand that it’s best […]
The BMJ Today: Urinating more frequently or having to go in the middle of the night? Yes—use this tool
I’m a sucker for interactive quizzes. Which Harry Potter character most reflects your personality? Which fictional literary character is most like you? How well do you know London—can you identify the London borough where this picture was taken? I’ve done them all! As a health journalist, I know where to find risk assessment questionnaires online […]