Sarah Woznick is a specialist intensive care nurse working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/ Doctors Without Borders). She arrived in Gaza six months ago from Denver, Colorado. She was due to leave the mission the day after operation “Protective Edge” began, but decided to stay on to help provide medical care. Image: Sarah in the […]
Vijaya Nath: Medical engagement—change or die
More than a year since Robert Francis’s recommendations, and after reports by Don Berwick, Sir Bruce Keogh, and the new Care Quality Commission inspection regime, we are still being challenged to demonstrate that healthcare is first and foremost focused on the needs of the patient. At the same time, there has been a call for the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—21 July 2014
NEJM 17 July 2014 Vol 371 203 Niacin is an abundant natural B vitamin, which lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol. What’s not to like? Well, niacin, unfortunately. In doses that make any difference to lipid levels, it is very likely to make you feel sick, get flushes and/or rashes, and/or feel muscle pains. So […]
The BMJ Today: Talking shit again
By the end of next month rural India could have an extra 5.2m toilets as part of a pre-election pledge by Narendra Modi, now prime minister, to build “toilets first and temples later.” Readers of The BMJ will no doubt be heartened by the Indian government’s announcement, coming seven years after sanitation topped a reader poll […]
Readers’ editor: A website needing more soft fruit
We like it when readers take the time and trouble to give us feedback. We’ve been particularly appreciative in the last two weeks as The BMJ’s new website beds down following its launch on 30 June. Some readers responded to the editorial published to mark the new website and the journal’s new name and logo. Eighty […]
Richard Smith: Misunderstanding conflict of interest
In Britain we have had a row over whether a judge, Elizabeth Butler Sloss, should chair an inquiry into child abuse. Everybody agrees that she has the necessary skills and unquestionable integrity, but she has a conflict of interest: her long dead brother was in the government and may have been involved in covering up […]
Tessa Richards: Go with the flow
Legend has it that the Anglo-Saxon king Canute believed his command could hold back the tide. Last week, Financial Times columnist Robert Shrimsley conjured up Canute’s image, as he describes how he went to his GP for a problem and the latter pleaded with him not to go to the internet for information. Of course, the […]
Ike Anya: What can mobile phone polling tell us about population health?
One Friday afternoon in May, I sat in my local library in London, surrounded by young men and women, who looked mostly like students studying for examinations. As they buried their heads in their books or scanned their laptop screens, I furiously tapped at the screen on my phone, causing a few heads to look […]
The BMJ Today: Society and healthcare
Recently, The BMJ published two articles that address important areas of contact between medicine and society. One deals with the best way to deter scientific fraud, the other with potential changes to the healthcare system in Scotland if this nation becomes independent. On 18 September, Scottish voters will decide whether Scotland will become an independent country. […]
Alison Cameron: Coming out of the box
I acquired a new label recently. I was named by the Health Service Journal as one of 50 “inspirational women” in healthcare. Quite something for someone who is not in the hierarchy: a “patient” no less. My work as a patient leader has made me aware of boxes, how we hide in them, and consign others […]