NEJM 17 Oct 2013 Vol 369 1491 “Tiotropium (Spiriva, Boehringer Ingelheim), a long-acting inhaled anticholinergic bronchodilator, improves lung function, quality of life, and exercise endurance and reduces exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).” I quote not from an advertisement for Spiriva, but from the start of a paper comparing one delivery method […]
In India, where at least 50% of the population is undernourished and anaemic, any comprehensive strategy to address the problem requires every possible intervention, including the most logical, but elusive step of linking agriculture to nutrition. This linkage has been a substantive part of the international and national discourse on undernutrition for several decades. It […]
Photo: Children receiving the polio vaccine in Somalia. Despite violence and abuse in Somalia, we wish to report some successes with disease surveillance. We have read with total understanding, but deep sadness the pull out of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from Somalia. Since the 2011 famine declaration, there […]
My mobile rings. It is a nurse from the Emergency Room (ER): “Dr Sophie, we have a boy whose legs have come off. Please could you come to help?” I shout “I’m coming!” before hanging up and starting the laborious task of correctly putting on my hijab, along with pulling on my shalwar kameez, making […]
On Christmas Day 1976 I kissed 500 women. All of them were over 70 and institutionalised, and one was either dead or killed by my kiss. I was a houseman, working in the Eastern General in Edinburgh, close to the city’s inadequate sewerage works. The hospital was built in 1906 by Leith Parish Council as […]
Back in June, I was putting the finishing touches to my application for the NHS Leadership Academy. A new and ambitious venture, it aims to bring leadership and management development to all corners of the NHS on an “industrial scale.” [1] According to its website, around £46 million will be invested into the academy by […]
Never let it be said that doctors are a homogeneous group. Quizzing doctors over the last few months about their hopes, fears, inspirations, and aspirations, the BMJ discovered an infinite variety of opinions. Take politics, for example. We asked each of them to name the best and worst health secretaries in their lifetime. We discovered […]
Unlike last year, there was not a formal cultural event at this year’s European geriatric medicine congress. The organising committee may rightly have considered this superfluous with the glories of Venice at our doorstep. Indeed, large numbers of geriatricians were observed garnering informal extra-mural CPD at the many locations across the island displaying the wonderful […]
In the early 80s I kissed a hand that Hitler had kissed. Once I realised what I’d done I felt like spitting, but I didn’t. This is how my physical connection with one of history’s monsters came about. In those days I was the BBC Breakfast Time doctor. Twice, sometimes thrice, a week I would […]
Revalidation—the process by which licensed doctors demonstrate that they are up to date and fit to practise—was greeted with cynicism by some in the medical profession when it was introduced last year. But what have responsible officers—those who make recommendations to the General Medical Council (GMC) about doctors’ fitness to practise—thought about the process during […]