“The BMJ is to be applauded for taking the lead in facilitating meaningful patient partnership,” posted Effy Vayena, senior research fellow at the University of Zurich, yesterday on bmj.com in response to an Editorial by our own Tessa Richards and Fiona Godlee. Their Editorial, “The BMJ’s own patient journey,” described the launch of the journal’s […]
Richard Smith: A book of poems for medical graduates
What should you give doctors when they graduate? An expensive stethoscope, a Ferrari, a lifetime subscription to The BMJ, a ticket to India, or a pet canary? The answer of “the medical community” in Scotland is a book of poems called Tools of the Trade. A copy will be given to every doctor graduating in […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—23 June 2014
NEJM 19 Jun 2014 Vol 370 2387 If you have a patient who is taking an opioid for chronic, non-cancer pain and gets constipated as a result, what do you do? Prescribe a laxative. Well done. And advise them that for most people with chronic pain, opioid analgesics don’t work and are best weaned off. […]
The BMJ Today: Keeping costs down
Researchers have calculated that billions of dollars could be saved if all eye doctors in the United States used the less expensive option of two drugs (bevacizumab and ranibizumab), which are commonly used to treat neovascular age related macular degeneration and diabetic macular oedema. The conditions affect more than two million Americans, yet only one […]
Simon Capewell: Spending NHS funds on weight management services—naughty or NICE?
I have been asked to write about the recent NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) recommendations on weight management services. I didn’t want to, I am already crazy busy as a public health academic. And I am usually a strong NICE supporter, previously describing it as a global exemplar. And I must confess an […]
William Cayley: EBM—curing and comforting
A recent article in The BMJ on the crisis in evidence based medicine (EBM) did a great job of both summarizing challenges that have developed over the past 20 years, and proposing some ways forward in delivering better evidence based care to our patients. Unfortunately, I think one piece of the evidence based puzzle is still […]
The BMJ Today: Health challenges across the divide
Overdiagnosis and over-treatment of malaria is a major problem in South and central Asia, where malaria is a minority cause of febrile illness, and primary health centres often rely on clinical symptoms for a diagnosis. Researchers from London and Afghanistan conducted a patient randomised study in a primary care setting in two areas where malaria […]
The BMJ Today: Candy Crush Saga, health warnings, and WHO’s financial woes
I’m a bit of an Apple lover. Not the fruit, but the company, although the odd golden delicious has been known to make an appearance in the fruit bowl. The millions of apps and games available across their products can be invaluable for everything from finding your way to the nearest free water facility (GiveMeTap), […]
Gillian Turner: Recognising frailty in older people
Given the current emphasis on emergency admissions and older people, it is perhaps not surprising that the words “frail” and “frailty” are used almost interchangeably with “older people.” Yet more than 50% of people over the age of 85 will not have frailty. For the 40 to 50 % that do, we need to carefully […]
Tessa Richards: Health 2.0—new technologies and e-patients
“All changed, changed utterly.” W B Yeats’s famous line was triggered by the Irish rebellion in 1916. Close to 100 years on, it could describe how digital technologies and social media are changing the world; not least the world of healthcare. At the Doctors 2.0 & You conference—launched and led by Denise Silber, a Paris […]