Limiting access adds savour to most sensory experiences, a sentiment captured by Patrick Kavanagh in his poem Advent: “through a chink too wide comes in no wonder.” A narrow aperture to one such wonder is provided every January by the National Galleries of Ireland and Scotland, one that also has interesting linkages to both medicine […]
Kieran Walsh: Should we be more short term in our thinking about medical education?
Putting the horse before the cart always seems like a sensible idea. And so it is with funding initiatives—it seems sensible to invest in starting up sustainable projects that will have long term positive outcomes. This is largely the received wisdom in investing in healthcare professionals’ education—invest in the undergraduate education of healthcare professionals in […]
Jonny Martell: An anthropological view of care of elderly people
When viewed through the perspective offered by an anthropological lens, “care of elderly people” is an extraordinary phenomenon in Western culture. Reading the masterful survey of what we might learn (and reject) from extant or recently extinct traditional societies in Jared Diamond’s “The World until Yesterday,” I was struck by the way in which the […]
Saleyha Ahsan on providing medical care in Syria
It had been raining for three days solid before I arrived at Atme refugee camp, in North Syria. I was there with Rola*, a British Syrian doctor and medical co ordinator of UK registered charity, Hand in Hand for Syria, to review the camp’s medical centre. Children wearing sandals came to speak to us. I […]
Lifebox Q and A: El Salvador—education, education, education
A pulse oximeter in the operating theatre doesn’t make surgery safer; it’s the anaesthesia provider using the oximeter effectively who will save lives. For Lifebox, the BMJ’s Christmas charity, provision of education is inseparable from donating equipment. That’s why we’re excited to share a recent conversation with Sandra Leal the president of the association of medical […]
Kailash Chand on the value of the “friends and family test”
Last week prime minister David Cameron announced a series of measures to improve nursing standards and care, including a “friends and family test” (FFT). To me, it appears more of a political gimmick rather than a clinically meaningful mandate for the NHS. The FFT proposes that every patient will be able to give feedback on […]
Liz Wager: You can call me 0000-0002-4202-7813
I just registered for an ORCID ID—I’m 0000-0002-4202-7813 in case you were wondering, but I still answer to Liz. I know I’ve written about ORCID before, but that was before it was launched, and I think it’s such a neat idea I’ve decided to blog about it again now it is up and running and […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—7 January 2012
JAMA 2 Jan 2013 Vol 309 41 There was an issue of JAMA that appeared on December 26th, but it contained nothing really worth disturbing your Christmastide slumbers. The New Year, however, sees JAMA springing into life with lots to interest most doctors. Many of us have delivered babies in our time—and I even have […]
Farah Kidy on volunteering in India with the Institute of Rural Health Studies
After years of planning and plotting, I was finally getting ready to head off to India. This was going to be a voyage of discovery; I was going to explore my roots, live village life, and hopefully, “do a bit of good.” I arrived at Hyderabad’s shiny new airport—complete with a WH Smith and a […]
Shalini: A 100 million lives, up in smoke
So it seems that the apocalypse didn’t occur and the world hasn’t come to an end. 2012 is not the end of existence as we know it—the Mayans were wrong. But take a closer look, and you wonder if the prophecy was true after all. The Mayans thought it would be a big storm, but […]