Ex-England and Lancashire cricketer Andrew “Freddy” Flintoff presented a candid and insightful documentary on depression and professional sport, titled “The hidden side of sport,” which was shown on BBC One on 11 January. He met with other famous sportsmen, all of who had been affected by depression; such as former professional footballer, now turned Hollywood […]
Richard Smith: The 20 foot fence between the rich and poor worlds
I’m standing looking at a twenty foot high fence that at night is lit as brightly as daylight. It snakes away over dry hills to both east and west like a vulgar, modern version of the Great Wall of China. I’m in Nogales, a town in both Arizona and Mexico that is sliced in half […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Who stole health
Who stole health. I used to think it was something to do with medicine. As a straight laced, card carrying, GMC registered proper doctor, perhaps I should relax, chill, and discover my inner calm. The health industry has less and less to do with medicine— everyone wants a piece of the action. The high street […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Martin Luther King day and health inequalities in the US
Martin Luther King day provides an opportunity to reflect on the civil rights movement as well as the broader issue of inequalities that face every nation. Because King’s “I have a dream” speech is so ubiquitously placed in two generations of middle and high school education, it is hard for many people my age or […]
Tony Waterston: Rain and refugees in Ramallah
In Ramallah in January, the talk is only of delight over the much needed heavy rain, even though it comes with biting cold and a strong mountain wind. For British visitors leaving the warmest autumn in decades it is a shock and in the auditorium for the graduation even the speakers wore overcoat and gloves. […]
Marge Berer: The breast implant fiasco: a scandal of private medicine
So, the silicone’s hit the fan. The use of industrial-grade silicone intended for mattresses, the possible fraud in hiding information from inspectors at production stage, and the failure in quality control in the regulatory phase, are particularly outrageous. However, the rapidly expanding private sector provision of breast implants for cosmetic reasons, by an “industry” that has been […]
Liz Wager: Do we need to rethink our approaches to research misconduct and research integrity?
Yesterday I took part in a joint BMJ/COPE meeting on research misconduct. The discussion set me thinking about factors that create and sustain healthy research environments. When we talk about misconduct, we often think of the cases that hit the headlines (such as Hwang Woo-suk or Scott Reuben). If we use these examples to suggest […]
Martin McShane: Incentives to transform primary care
I was fortunate to be able to listen to Danna Safran from Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Massachusetts at a recent King’s Fund conference. She was talking about the alternative quality contract (AQC). Double digit inflation in healthcare costs and a mandate for every individual to have insurance in Massachusetts drove BCBS to think […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 16 January 2012
JAMA 11 Jan 2012 Vol 307 157 There’s a general feeling among cardiologists that low potasssium is a bad thing, but this interesting observational study of 38 689 patients with acute myocardial infarction shows that a high potassium can be even worse. On admission with AMI, potassium levels are normally distributed (figure 1): mortality in […]
Evi Kalodiki on the fellowship of women: two hundred surgical lives
The fellowship of women: two hundred surgical lives, is a fascinating book. It was launched at the Women in Surgery (WinS) meeting of the Royal College of Surgeons on the 4 November 2011. It commemorates the 100th anniversary since the first woman surgeon was permitted to take the fellowship examination and be admitted into the RCS […]