There is nothing more convincing than someone citing research, and yet we often don’t know if what’s being cited is any good. Research can be bad if it’s poorly conducted or if the wrong evaluative method was used to answer the question. The methods we use in healthcare are often quite limited, especially when it […]
Chris Hopson: NHS waiting times—the long and the short of it
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s speech earlier this week, which called on NHS hospitals to clear their backlog of patients waiting more than a year for treatment, rightly pointed to the personal consequences of each individual case on the waiting list. While recognising that some delays are the result of patient choice or good clinical reasons, waiting for treatment if […]
The BMJ Today: Boring can be beautiful
Mary E Black’s blog on making data beautiful caught my eye this morning. As a technical editor at The BMJ I see a lot of tables, graphs, plots, and charts. I don’t want to put my job at risk, but I’ve got to agree with Mary when she writes that many of these representations of data […]
Lavanya Malhotra: India’s lost girls and doctors’ complicity
According to India’s 2011 census, the sex ratio in India was 943 women for every 1000 men. Yet a recent report by the United Nations reveals that the child sex ratio in India has declined from 927 girls for every 1000 boys in 2001, to 918 in 2011. Behind this statistic, the report points out, are the clinics and medical […]
The BMJ Today: What good are doctors?
Call it an exercise in reflective learning or a sign of deep insecurity, but articles like Richard Smith’s latest blog (“I hate going to the doctor“) always make me (mentally) replay my most recent consultations as a GP. I can’t always be certain that seeing me helped those patients, although I know that many have […]
Mary E Black: Data is really beautiful
My whine of the week, if not the decade . . . Given that data, and in particular big data, is inevitable, exciting, inspiring, unlocks potential, has fabulous hidden patterns, is a game changer, is a huge business opportunity, can mobilise resources, can change our organisations and our lives forever . . . why does […]
Iñaki Martínez Nimatuj and Mónica Garcia Asensio: A pharma free medical conference
Osatzen is the Basque Family Physicians Scientific Society and part of the federation semFYC (the Spanish Family Physicians Society). It is composed of 900 GP partners who pay an annual fee of €66. Our main goal is to generate and share scientific knowledge, and—for that reason—we prioritise transparency, objectivity, and autonomy in both our own scientific […]
Rachael Addicott and Kieran Walshe: How do CQC hospital inspections measure up?
Over the past few years, we have seen several high profile failures of care in NHS acute hospitals in England, leading many in the system to question the ability of performance management and regulatory mechanisms to identify and act on poor performance. Last year, in response to these events and concerns, the Care Quality Commission […]
Barry Main et al: Bringing informed consent back to patients
Every day around the world, thousands of operations are undertaken. In the days and weeks leading up to these procedures, surgeons and their patients discuss the goals of surgery, expected outcomes, and concerns about potential unfavourable events. These often thoughtful, and sometimes difficult, discussions culminate in the signing of a legal document: the informed consent. […]
The BMJ Today: Going beyond the call of duty
Move over the automation of clinical algorithms and etiquette based checklists, suggests Brian Secemsky, a physician, as he shares a touching account of a patient consultation. Choosing to build a rapport with his patient over several appointments helped unravel the real cause of her suffering, and facilitated appropriate management, which would have otherwise been missed […]