NEJM 1 Aug 2013 Vol 369 397 Shared decision making at the end of life is probably the toughest challenge in medicine. It requires good evidence about a wide range of interventions, good communication skills, close teamwork, and above all emphasis on the patient as a whole, and a sensitive capacity to take responsibility and […]
Since the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy´s People´s Party (PP) took office with an absolute majority on November 2011, healthcare has repeatedly been the setting for implementing ideological decisions that often contradict scientific evidence, social reality, or both. With the PP collapsing in the polls due to its cooperation with the austericide imposed by the international authorities and the […]
Columnist Charles Moore asked in The Spectator magazine last week if the Liverpool Care Pathway might have inspired more confidence if it had been called, say, the Oxford Care Pathway. Was Moore referring to Oxford as an ancient seat of learning and innovation, or lazily perpetuating the myth that Liverpool is synonomous with riots, poverty, […]
Welcome to a series of blogs on sustainable healthcare that look at health, sustainability, and the interplay between the two. The blogs share ideas from experts across the healthcare field, some of whom are speaking at a major European conference looking at Pathways to Sustainable Healthcare in September 2013. More about the conference can be […]
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have a lot stacked against them. They have taken control of the majority of the NHS budget at a time when financial pressures are mounting and there is little hope of relief in the next few years. Some GPs have gone as far as to say they are being set up […]
As junior doctors, we all see and hear things that work well or that could work better as we rotate between different departments across a number of hospital trusts. So we are in a privileged position to contribute to the safety of the healthcare we deliver to our patients. I previously found raising concerns a […]
JAMA 24-31 July 2013 Vol 310 It’s possible that you want to read about US physicians’ views on their role in cost containment, and about rates of breast cancer survival in white and black US women (there is little difference) and even about raccoon rabies virus variant transmission through solid organ transplantation, and you may […]
Most Europeans support organ donation, but there is still a need for more organ donors, according to several experts at a recent international meeting on donation and transplantation, organized in Madrid by the European Commission and the Spanish Minister of Health, Social Services, and Equality. By the end of 2011, 61 500 patients were on […]
Shared decision making (SDM) between clinicians and patients is riding high in clinical and health policy circles in the United States. SDM is featured in several sections of the Affordable Care Act, and has been included as an element in the Accountable Care Organizations and the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, supported by the Center for […]
When television channels started beaming images of the Uttarakhand flash floods the magnitude of nature took me by a surprise. Thousands were displaced, and infrastructure worth millions was damaged. The area was in ruins. As a doctor my predominant concern was for the health of the people in the area. Most of the villages in […]