A few days ago a disturbed young man in Newtown, Connecticut, shot his mother before going to the primary school where she worked to murder 20 children, aged between six and seven years old, and six staff. The immediate response was disbelief and shock at yet another mass shooting in America. But this was followed, […]
Trish Groves: Get the gun out of the house
About 15 years ago I sat in on the superb Doctoring programme at UCLA that taught medical students the art of medicine through role play with actors. One scenario featured a teenage boy whose behaviour was causing concern at home and school. I don’t remember all the details of the case, but the gist was […]
Liz Wager: Discussing research misconduct with Dr Hwang
In a country where over half the population is called Kim, Park, or Lee, it probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to find myself talking about research misconduct with Dr Hwang in South Korea. Although he shares a name with a researcher notorious for fraud, this Dr Hwang is busy running courses on […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—17 December 2012
JAMA 12 Dec 2012 Vol 308 2349 The run-up to Christmas never finds me in the best of moods, and now it seems that the editor of JAMA is trying to wind me up by showcasing all my pet hates. Well, some of them anyway: to showcase them all would require a space the size […]
Domhnall MacAuley: “Seven Deadly Sins” and Lance Armstrong
The sports medicine book of the year? No, not some worthy academic text or edited works of the great and the good (and, yes, I did one of these this year myself), but, David Walsh’s new book—Seven Deadly Sins—charting the evolution of his doubts and subsequent investigations into Lance Armstrong and doping. David spoke last […]
Desmond O’Neill: Graphic insights into Alzheimer’s disease
In my practice as a geriatrician, no syndrome is as interesting, intellectually stimulating, and simultaneously frustrating and rewarding as dementia. Ethical sensitivity, integrative neurology, a critical approach to neurobiology, and a kind but dogged inquisitiveness underpin the knife-edge act of supporting the patient within the complex web of family and insufficient social and societal supports. […]
Radhika Arora et al: Challenges and opportunities for female health systems researchers
Juggling personal and professional lives in search of the perfect balance is an art that women and men across the world, in different spheres of work, are familiar with. How does this play out in the life of a female health researcher? At the Health Systems Research Symposium held in Beijing recently, a group of […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Systematic reviews in international development
This week I am in rural Savar, Bangladesh, attending the Dhaka Colloquium on Systematic Reviews in International Development. It is always a pleasure to be in Bangladesh, but it is particularly enjoyable to be with so many of my colleagues from ICDDR,B, collaborative partners from systematic review work at 3ie, and the Campbell Collaboration, but […]
Ed Silverman on the Sunshine rule in the US
Any day now the Obama administration is expected to release the long delayed Sunshine rule which will determine how drug and device makers are to gather and publish data containing their financial relationships with physicians. At least that is what many companies and consumer advocates are hoping, but a strain of anxiety is noticeable among […]
Julian Sheather: On doughnuts, moral desert, and paying for our health
I am writing this on an early train to Manchester. Not a bad time to see what people enjoy for breakfast. The woman opposite is eating one of those lovely looking pastry ropes wound full of chocolate chips and dusted with icing sugar. Although it is not a doughnut, inevitably I am reminded of the […]