I have a good memory. Actually I’m being modest. I have an amazing memory, according to friends and family. 29 June 1974. A Saturday. I was eight. We went on holiday to Hopton-on-Sea. 1 September 1977, a Thursday. My first day at secondary school. There was a girl in my class called Sarah Lowe. She […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—1 October 2012
Arch Intern Med 24 Sep 2012 Vol 172 Of Exercise I sing, and that benignant sweat Which from six thousand diabetic brows Exudes. My pen, Hygeia, speed! To save That honey-urined tribe from mortal pains Which Indolence doth breed, and glut of food: That to the treadmill they may go, or healthful jog, Or bicycle […]
David Kerr: Man of the people
So David Cameron does not know the meaning of the phrase Magna Carta (The Great Charter) or who composed the music to Rule Britannia (Thomas Arne). The prime minister was appearing on the David Letterman show in the US following in the footsteps of his political adversary, Boris Johnson who also made a similar appearance […]
Richard Smith: Polypill summit hears of slow progress
The idea of combining antihypertensive drugs, a statin, and sometimes aspirin into a polypill to prevent heart attacks and strokes is now a dozen years old, but still no drug is licensed in a high income country. This week researchers, funders, regulators, policymakers, and drug manufacturers gathered together in Hamilton, Canada, to review and perhaps […]
Steve Yentis: Infamous names in anaesthesia—part three
My short list of infamous anaesthetists [read part one and part two of this blog series] has developed into a musing about research misconduct—and particularly fraud—in general, prompted by the Fujii case, with up to perhaps 200 retractions on their way. Here, I’m pondering the cost of research fraud: who loses, and who loses more […]
Leena Menghaney: India’s patent law on trial
This month, two critical legal battles between multinational pharmaceutical companies and the Indian government are taking center stage in an ongoing struggle over India’s medicines patent law. The potential consequences could be dire for governments and people in developing countries that rely on affordable, quality generic medicines produced in India. For example, more than 80% […]
Muir Gray: Meeting the Trish Greenhalgh challenge
In the debate about the NHS reforms that occupied so much Twitter space before the Health and Social Care Bill was passed, Trish Greenhalgh quite properly challenged me to use the five whys approach that Taiichi Ohno used within Toyota and that I had been advocating be used for other issues, to drill down to […]
Amanda Glassman et al: A post 2015 development goal for health—should it be universal health coverage?
As 2015 approaches and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire, the global health community is discussing the options for the next set of international goals for health. In the current set of MDGs, there are multiple goals that directly and indirectly relate to health (see below). Today, there is some worry that the next set […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Only trust will make the future model of care work
There is increasing acceptance that the current model of healthcare is wrong. Rather than episodic care triggered by acute events and delivered in hospitals, there needs to be continuous care that includes the patient as a key asset able to self or co-manage his or her condition(s). So much of the discourse on the future […]
Tara Lamont: Where are the doctors in patient safety research?
Bob Wachter, a leading US clinical researcher and leader of “hospitalist” fame, came over here on a sabbatical last year and mentioned in passing his personal roll-call of influential figures from this side of the water on patient safety research. Jim Reason, Charles Vincent, Mary Dixon-Woods….but they are all social scientists. Where were the doctors? […]