Whenever I tell people I work for Lifebox, they often say, “Oh, is that the pulse oximeter charity?” I’ve heard this so many times now that it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that’s all we do—send out pulse oximeters. Don’t get me wrong, we do send out pulse oximeters, and they […]
Anna Allan: Making an impact
It is a sign of the times that one of the best ways for information from outside of hospital to come to my attention is via my Facebook newsfeed. This is indeed true, with links to various newspaper articles plastered all over my homepage announcing the recent death of Joseph E Murray, a pioneer of […]
Julian Sheather: Taxing the fat
To the evident frustration of the Danish Medical Association, Denmark has repealed the world’s first tax on saturated fats. The climb-down came after just over a year, the government citing strong public hostility. According to the Economist, “retailers and shoppers whooped with joy” at the announcement. Given that so much of the world is struggling […]
George Alleyne: Global health challenges and opportunities
The standard approach to defining the global health challenges is to use some formulation of Abdel Omran’s epidemiological transition or what is known also as the health transition and show that the progression is inevitably from famine and pestilence through the stage of receding pandemics to the predominance of the chronic degenerative noncommunicable diseases globally. […]
Kieran Walsh: Revalidation starts today
A running joke about revalidation is that its roll out is and always will be 12 to 18 months away. What will mandarins in Whitehall and the colleges chuckle about now that revalidation has finally started? Almost as important, will revalidation work and what impact will it have on the working lives of doctors, standards […]
Richard Smith: Why not auction your paper?
The idea has long been around that instead of submitting your paper to one journal you should auction it to the highest bidder. Today I did it. As we all know, getting published in high impact journals is crucial for academics. It shouldn’t be that way, and it’s wholly unscientific to use the impact factor […]
Rej Bhumbra: Is it ethical to donate second hand implantable devices to the developing world?
Few would disagree that organ donation and transplant surgery is a remarkable achievement. It is a selfless gift that unlocks the potential to cure disease or allay symptoms. But if that “gift” was a bone fixation plate, or an implantable cardiac defibrillator, would the perception be the same? The initial “gift” production responsibility is not […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—3 December 2012
JAMA 28 Nov 2012 Vol 308 2097 Heart failure is a common process of dying which mostly affects people over the age of 75. Living with heart failure can be burdensome and unpredictable, and dying from heart failure can be awful, unless you are lucky enough to die suddenly. I thought I’d get those sentences […]
Qian Li, Raoul Bermejo III, Kopano Mabaso: Young researcher’s perspectives on health systems research
Qian Li, West China Centre for Rural Health Research & Development, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. While we young researchers come from diverse backgrounds and careers, we share a common desire to dedicate ourselves to strengthening the health systems of our countries. I received medical training and I was once a doctor in an urban […]
Desmond O’Neill: Shaken and stirred
A key challenge of teaching gerontology in health sciences is to liberate ageing from the confines of later life and to view it as a continuous process across the life course. No neater (or more unlikely) support can be found than the themes of ageing, utility, and retirement permeating Skyfall, the latest James Bond movie. […]