These are strange, mixed-up days to be a disabled person. Newspapers are littered as never before with stories of the high achieving disabled athletes set to take part in the London 2012 Paralympics, and of a public desperate for tickets to watch them perform. Meanwhile, many of those same national newspapers have fuelled disability hate […]
Edmund Jessop on the selling off of school playing fields and encouraging young people into sport
Our relationship with physical activity starts at such a young age that it is vital that we all—schools, families, society—play our part to get it right for children and young people. The recent furore over the selling off of school playing fields, at a time when Olympians were delighting the nation with their elite achievements, […]
Nicola While: The new EU law for data protection and its impact on healthcare
The provision of healthcare in the UK is often significantly affected by EU legislation despite member states guarding the right to define national health policy and to organise and deliver their health services and medical care. It is often legislation that does not specifically mention health, but covers all sectors that has the greatest impact. […]
Martin Wiseman, Kathryn Allen, and Rachel Thompson: Weighing the evidence on cancer prevention
Scientists gathered at the World Cancer Congress in Montreal, Canada last week to share experience from research and practice, and to consider solutions to reduce the impact of cancer on communities around the world. The theme, “Connecting for Global Impact” highlights the need for continued support and momentum in translating knowledge gained through research and […]
Penny Campling: Thoughts on a healthcare culture—part 3
Why do good staff become bad? This seems a particularly pertinent question for those of us interested in healthcare in the aftermath of Mid Staffordshire, Winterbourne View, and the repeated and deeply depressing glugs of distasteful information coming through about our callousness towards the elderly. There is certainly no evidence that healthcare staff are more […]
Richard Smith: Perhaps I could live forever
I’m sitting in first class on the train to Edinburgh with two glasses of red wine inside me when I look across the water to Lindisfarne and suddenly think “Perhaps I could live forever.” This was a revelation because until now I’ve been unequivocal that immortality would be unbearable. It must have been partly the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—28 August 2012
JAMA 22-29 Aug 2012 Vol 308 777 A new stent from Switzerland! Don’t all leave the room at once. Sit down and make yourselves COMFORTABLE while I tell you the story of poor little Bi, who got parted from the rest of the Olimus family early on in life and remained lonely and stranded in […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Santa Claus and Lance Armstrong
Santa Claus and Lance Armstrong. From the moment you stop believing—it’s never quite the same. After ten years of outrunning his accusers, Armstrong says he is not going to fight a United States Anti Doping Agency case that claims he used performance enhancing drugs and implicated him in systematic doping of his tour winning teams. […]
Tiago Villanueva: Does it matter where you do your medical training?
The standards of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical training vary widely around the world. This partly explains why the medical profession is so fiercely regulated when a doctor wishes to practise in a country different to where they trained. Whether better training necessarily predicts more professional success and competence is a different matter. I don’t […]
James Drife: Doctors on the Fringe
This week we are in Edinburgh, performing on the Festival Fringe. We’ve been doing this intermittently since 1974, and in fact the personal view that I wrote about our first show was my first-ever article in a medical journal (BMJ 1974;4:766). I’ve just re-read it. It’s a weird experience to meet yourself again after 38 […]