Is “Madonna” the answer? Definitely “No” although the woman nominated one of Time Magazine’s 25 most powerful women of the past century would certainly have something to say about (Dr) Tracey Koehlmoos’ experiences as the only woman on a panel of experts. Each time she is introduced as plain “Tracey” at yet another high powered […]
Chris Hopson: Planning to meet the District General Hospital challenge
A recent visit to a district general hospital (DGH) over the Christmas period gave a perfect illustration of the scale of immediate challenge that many acute trusts face over the next few years; challenges that were raised by both Chris Ham and Dr John Oldham in their November 2013 BMJ analyses on money and reform […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: You’ve come a long way, baby. Really?
March is Women’s History Month in the US, UK, and Australia. 8 March was International Women’s Day everywhere. There are more women prime ministers, presidents, CEOs, and leaders than ever before. More women than men attend college in the US, and since 2008 women have completed the majority of doctoral degrees. However, for all of […]
The BMJ Today: Cigarettes and alcohol
“My earliest ambition was to be an engineer, because someone told me girls couldn’t be engineers,” says Glasgow based GP Margaret McCartney in BMJ Confidential. It’s this tenacious attitude that has characterised Margaret’s career, from her day to day work as a GP in Glasgow, to her tireless defence of the ethics and values of […]
Vijaya Nath: Medical revalidation: trauma, trivia, triumph
The United Kingdom is the first country in the world to introduce the mandatory revalidation of its medical workforce. How does this process feel for those engaged in it? The King’s Fund have been exploring this question with doctors on development programmes, in masterclass events, and in a recent qualitative study and have found some […]
Simon Chapman: Will vapers really “quit and (not) die?”
The public health appeal of vaping that emboldens its advocates to sanctimoniously taunt anyone unconvinced by their evangelism as callous “quit or die” moralists is that e-cigarettes are spectacularly promising as a way of quitting smoking. Aware that many vapers also continue to smoke, they point to the seemingly undeniable logic of “every cigarette forgone […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—17 March 2014
NEJM 13 Mar 2014 Vol 370 1029 Doctors, by and large, make bad scientists. We train our minds for years in some of the hardest intellectual disciplines, and then make do with the sloppiest excuse for thought when it comes to believing what we wish to. All of us learned, at some time between the […]
The BMJ Today: Statins in the headlines again
Statins have been featuring in the news fairly regularly of late. Last week they made the headlines again when a systematic review of side effects in placebo-controlled trials of statins was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. “Statins ‘have no side effects’” read the front page of The Daily Telegraph. But as Jacqui […]
Paul Wicks: Patients take centre stage at the 4th NHS Expo
This year’s NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo was held at the sympathetically converted former train station Manchester Central and felt more like a festival than a trade show. Volunteers from health and social care offered hands-on training sessions at the lunar domes of Camp Expo, which drew on the traditions of the tech industry’s […]
Simon Chapman on e-cigarettes: the best and the worst case scenarios for public health
Use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigs or Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems—ENDS) is showing exponential increase in some nations. Their regular use remains marginal in Australia, where the sale of nicotine liquid is banned (personal imports are legal only if the importer needs nicotine for therapeutic purposes—including to assist with the cessation of smoking. Legal importation of […]