Four years ago I wrote about my diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and how despite this I had gone on to be successful at medical school, in the hope that it would provide hope to health professionals with mental health problems. Despite a diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder at the age of 20, I had finished […]
Richard Smith: Is the New England Journal of Medicine anti-science?
About once a year a furious researcher writes to me complaining that the New England Journal of Medicine won’t publish a letter that strongly criticises, even demolishes, an article the journal has published. They write to me out of frustration, not because I have any influence over the Bostonian paragon, but because I’ve dared to […]
Sean Roche: Influencing public perceptions of the NHS—the politics of fear and the manufacture of consent
Attending to the health secretary’s recent pronouncements and politicking around the state of the NHS, I find myself reflecting on rather striking parallels with the propagandising that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Most obvious is the utilization of fear and anxiety to influence public opinion and create the requisite conditions for state actions that […]
Desmond O’Neill: A tale of three cities—geriatric medicine in Australia
Some minds improve by travel, wrote the nineteenth century poet and humorist, Thomas Hood: others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther. And so it was with the spirit of keen metallurgical inquiry that I stress tested this theorem on a recent ten day visiting professorship with the Australian […]
Krishna Chinthapalli: The great consultant mortality rate experiment—part 2
Read part one of this blog here. Bad outcomes Ben Bridgewater thinks there are three main reasons why some consultants have opted out of reporting outcomes: data quality, risk adjustment, and the multidisciplinary nature of the work. Looking back at the cardiac surgery data, he says, “Before we published the data, there were some units […]
Krishna Chinthapalli: The great consultant mortality rate experiment—part 1
An ugly outcome In the early hours of Friday 28 June, a surgeon lay awake with worry. Finally he decided to go into hospital to catch up with his paperwork and emails. As he walked down the hospital corridor, a nursing colleague saw him and gasped, “Have you seen the news?” before giving him her […]
Readers’ editor: Influence beyond the impact factor
The BMJ’s impact and influence should be measured by more than just established metrics such as impact factor. But the new figures, released two weeks ago, are very welcome. The journal’s impact factor rose more than 20% to 17.215. My first thought on discovering this was that a strategic aim to increase the impact of the BMJ’s scholarly content is starting to […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Are there any aspects of healthcare about which you are passionate?
Health inequality. As an editor, we see lots of papers on health inequality; an anodyne, antiseptic term that trips off the tongue without baggage. Not much new. But, in practice it means poor people, who may smoke too much, eat the wrong food, don’t have jobs, live in the wrong place, have lots of illness, […]
Sandeep Kumar Panigrahi: The annual health survey in India
The Annual Health Survey (AHS), conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the register general of India, has proved to be a major breakthrough for empowered action group states in India, including Odisha. The objective of the AHS was to yield benchmarks of core vital and health indicators at a […]
Rachel Stancliffe and Mahmood Bhutta: Should doctors lead on sustainability?
Welcome to a new series of blogs on sustainable healthcare that will look at health, sustainability and the interplay between the two. The blog will 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 […]