“Raise your hand if:” —“You are an editor of a medical journal?” A sea of hands shot up in the air. —“The ‘Instructions to Authors’ of your journal indicates the reporting guidelines/ checklists to be complied with?” Less than half stay put. — “You do not accept a paper unless the checklist appropriate to the study […]
Shalini on India’s antibiotic policy
Antibiotic resistance has become one of the biggest public health epidemics of our time. While national data on hospital acquired infections is still elusive, the Indian government admits that 80% of antibiotics are used in the community, and that 20-50% of all antibiotic use is inappropriate. For some chronic diseases like tuberculosis, the problem of […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—19 August 2013
NEJM 15 Aug 2013 Vol 369 603 A publicly funded trial in the USA, simply called the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, examined the effect of finasteride on prostate cancer incidence and mortality in men without known prostate cancer at the time of enrolment, and found that finasteride significantly reduced the risk of prostate cancer, but […]
Gabriel Scally: Crumbs from the table for cycling and walking
These days, I worry occasionally about appearing churlish. I fully understand that when some investment in cycling is announced the expected response is that I should applaud politely and feel deep gratitude for the government’s munificence in recognising that cyclists and pedestrians need some support. My problem is that I have never been happy with […]
Tessa Richards: How can we get better at listening?
Reports urging health professionals to listen to patients and use their experience to improve the quality, value, and safety of healthcare have been flowing thick and fast. Last week another swelled their ranks. In his report on how the NHS might achieve the Shangri La of causing “zero harm,” US health guru Don Berwick headlined […]
Lucien Engelen: Patients not included
We all know that healthcare faces huge challenges—budget cuts, increasing demand, and a shortage of skilled personnel. To help find solutions to this, conferences are set up to discuss the changes needed. But most of these conferences happen without the people they are all about—patients. “When people are talking about you and you’re not at […]
Eva Dumann: My experience of being a Clegg scholar
I saw an advertisement for the Clegg scholarship in the Student BMJ magazine and decided to apply on impulse, mainly because our supervisors were urging me and my second year colleagues to find a worthwhile experience and not waste another preclinical summer by innocently enjoying life. To me, someone with an interest in writing and […]
Roger Taylor on how to use data to improve healthcare
Don Berwick’s report on patient safety in the NHS, published last week, adds another viewpoint to the question of how we tackle poor quality in health services. It supplements the reports from Professor Sir Bruce Keogh on high mortality hospitals and from Robert Francis QC into the events at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. There are […]
Paul J Rosch: Cholesterol, cancer, and statins
Numerous studies of healthy people show that a low cholesterol concentration that has persisted for a decade or more is associated with an increased risk of cancer, and that elevated cholesterol has the reverse effect. This has raised concerns that statins might result in an increase in malignancies, especially since all statins are cardinogenic in doses that […]
Kailash Chand: How can we resource a 24/7 NHS?
The secretary of state for health in England Jeremy Hunt, has on numerous occasions expressed that he would like to see a seven day a week NHS, where patients get the same quality of treatment at weekends as on any working day. This is laudable. All efforts should be made to improve services at weekends, […]