A new temporary home in the desert Assisted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Jordanian authorities, large families flee their homes in war torn Syria to seek refuge in Jordan. Refugees cross the border in the shadows of night carrying their life possessions in rope bags and cardboard boxes. They are first registered […]
Rhys Davies: Imagining the Future of Medicine—not just robots and old people
On Monday 21 April, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a curious event. Imagining the Future of Medicine was an afternoon filled with a variety of speakers and artistic performances. Its goal was, in equal parts, to challenge and inspire its audience—a melange of doctors, students, and the greater public—to consider novel ways of […]
Glyn Elwyn et al: Crowdsourcing health care—hope or hype?
The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science How does the increasing interest in the use of crowdsourcing platforms, as a way to help patients, fit into the debate about personal health information and the desire for confidentiality? Social media platforms have redefined how people interact with each other, but could it be that health […]
Richard Smith: Do sexual abuse of children and research misconduct have something in common?
Every so often I hear stories of people prominent in medical research who are suspected of research misconduct—or research fraud, as it was once more bluntly called. Could the stories possibly be true? Some prominent people have been found guilty of misconduct, and we know that research misconduct is not rare. A systematic review found […]
The BMJ Today: Good figures, bad figures, and no figures
New statistics on The BMJ‘s website today show improved cancer survival rates in the UK. Half of patients diagnosed with cancer today will survive for at least 10 years, whereas only a quarter would have done so 40 years ago, figures published by the charity Cancer Research UK show. […]
Jane Smith: Robot journalism
Imagine a news story written and published within three minutes of the event happening. That’s a real scenario described by Emily Bell in her T P Stead Lecture at the British Library last week. I was intrigued by her title “Robot reporters” and went to hear more about “Journalism in the Age of Automation and […]
Ewout van Ginneken: ICARE4EU—important progress and challenges ahead
The ICARE4EU project wants to improve the care of people suffering from multiple chronic conditions. It will describe, analyse, and identify innovative integrated care models for people with multimorbidity in 31 European countries, and aims to contribute to more effective implementation of such models. During the project (from 2013 to mid 2016), members of the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—28 April 2014
NEJM 24 Apr 2014 Vol 370 1583 The New England Journal has put so many good articles online first lately that I’ve left myself with thin pickings this week. This big French study of blood pressure targets in septic shock has been on the website for some weeks, and I didn’t comment on it sooner […]
The BMJ Today: Let me have some information
Appeals for information, transparency, and openness are the focus of three articles recently published in The BMJ. From breast cancer screening leaflets to media reporting and medical training, it seems that a lack of openness threatens to harm patient care. […]
Trish Groves: Media reaction to the updated Cochrane reviews on Tamiflu and Relenza
The two updated Cochrane reviews on the benefits and harms in influenza of the neuraminidase inhibitors oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) attracted lots of attention after The BMJ published them earlier this month. This is my third blog about the feedback. The first blog focussed on rapid responses to the two research articles, and the second looked at how they […]