I like to read “A Patient’s Journey” in the BMJ, and a recent offering was of special interest for my wife and me. It described a patient’s experience of Lyme neuroborreliosis. Lyme disease is unusual, particularly if you live in Manchester, and as a result it is not high up on the list of differential […]
Anna Allan: Life after finals?
The last few weeks have been life-changing for thousands of final year medical students, present company included. Final exams themselves have been a far off concept for many of us since the very beginning of our medical student lives—we have been perpetually aware of them, but they always seemed to happen to someone else. Even […]
Richard Smith: Homesickness—my most serious “disease”
Last week I walked from Poole to Chapman’s Pool along the South West Coastal Path, and as I passed through Swanage memories flooded back, some of them very painful. This is where as a 10 year old I suffered the most pain I’ve suffered in my 60 years—from homesickness. Some of the pain comes back […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—16 July 2012
Arch Intern Med 9 July 2012 Vol 172 988 The moors around Sheffield which I used to frequent in my youth remained much the same as in 1813, when John Farey made his list of the “noxious and useless plants” to be found in the Peak District. “The following are a few Memorandums that I […]
Fran Baum: The conclusion of the Third People’s Health Assembly
The last three plenary sessions of the Third People’s Health Assembly (PHA) were used to debate the People’s Health Movement’s (PHM) strategies and priorities for the future. These sessions enabled the health activists from around the world to build on their experiences, and devise the issues that the PHM will address in coming years. Key […]
Sharon L Camp: Putting family planning back on the global agenda
What will it take to ensure that all women in the developing world can determine for themselves when and if to have a child, have healthy and planned pregnancies, and increase their chances of leading healthier, more productive lives? This week, world leaders gathered at the London Summit on Family Planning to address these questions […]
James Raftery: NICE, obesity, and bariatric surgery
The trends on obesity are shocking. UK data on the prevalence of obesity in adults and children are provided by the National Obesity Observatory, which also shows the social gradient in obesity. NICE’s guideline on obesity emphasised prevention, but recommended medical and surgical treatment. Bariatric surgery was an option for those with a body mass […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Brave IOM starts defining the knowledge to practice chasm
I survived. In a recent post I worried that the bigwigs at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) would be underwhelmed by my contention that one of the main—and perhaps the most important—functional requirements to get more information used in clinical practice is trust in the information. I was worried the polysyllabic crowd at the Roundtable […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 12 July 2012
NEJM 5 July 2012 Vol 367 11 Eltrombopag is a name which has moved me to poetry in the past, and there is a grave danger of this happening again. It is, you remember, an orally available thrombopoietin mimetic which can be used to treat thrombocytopenia. In this phase 2 trial it was used to […]
Julian Sheather: Happy-ology
It is possibly the oldest of all philosophical questions. Although academic specialisation has tended to brush it to the wings—embarrassed perhaps by the sheer indeterminate unwieldiness of it—the question of what constitutes a good or flourishing life and how we can live one will not, for good human reasons, go away. And if academic philosophers […]