2011 was an incredible year for news. Unrest across the world was organised via social media and often documented by citizens using little more than mobile phones. Rolling news bombarded us with grainy footage of protests and kilings. Now a new exhibition, sponsored by Sky News, looks back on a year of reporting violence. Frontline: […]
BMJ survey on research misconduct
We conducted an electronic survey of our UK-based submitting authors and reviewers about research misconduct in the UK. We invited 9,036 to take part and 2,782 responded (31%) within a week. We asked them if they had witnessed, or had firsthand knowledge of, UK-based scientists or doctors inappropriately adjusting, excluding, altering or fabricating data during […]
Research highlights – 13 January 2012
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Sameer Sarkar: Should a doctor have to countersign gun licence applications?
There are two sides to every story. However in the case of the tragic shooting incident on New Year’s Day in County Durham, we are only hearing part of the story. Mainstream media reports that the shooter Michael Atherton, a taxi driver (who also died in the same incident), was licensed to have no less […]
Richard Vize: How to spend a £300 million capital fund
The Department of Health is sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds it doesn’t know how to spend. As the Health Service Journal revealed last week, the DH has suddenly started scrabbling around for ways to use £300 million of capital budget. Some trusts have been given only seven working days to apply, others don’t […]
Muir Gray: The need for systems
“All of a sudden a big mealie pudden came flying through the air.” This is the opening line of a Glaswegian song, which only gets worse, about an assault by a mealie pudden, a sort of second class black pudding with the blood removed. On the 24 November at 11 o’clock, I experienced severe central […]
Richard Smith: Medical students and refugees: mutual benefit
One of the worries about medical students is that they are not well connected to the real world. The come mostly from privileged backgrounds, enter the monastery of the medical school at 18, and spend the next 10 years focusing on passing exams and learning basic clinical skills. It’s not surprising that many come to […]
Domhnall MacAuley: No more sad/happy movies
No more sad/happy movies for me. I hate the thought that someone might see me blubbering in the cinema. Alpha males shouldn’t cry. Tonight it was The Well Digger’s Daughter. I will not spoil it for you by telling you what happens. Lovely scenery, good acting, nice story. But, I had to pretend I didn’t […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 9 January 2012
JAMA 4 Jan 2012 Vol 307 37 The gradual makeover of JAMA takes a further step with the introduction of a series of Viewpoints in the opening section. Quite nice, and very like the NEJM: it’s good to see some of America’s liveliest minds at work here thinking about medicine in general and their chaotic […]
Leslie Shanks: False positive HIV tests: the problem no one wants to talk about (and how to solve it)
“Finally, someone is talking about this.” I heard this refrain frequently at the recent International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after telling people about the satellite session hosted by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The difficult topic: false positive HIV tests. In resource limited settings, HIV diagnosis […]