Someone I know, who is not a health care professional but has dedicated most of their working life to supporting improvements in health and health care, recently shared with me their observations about general practice. Rather than focussing on poor performance they studied the good to find out what it was that made them different. […]
David Kerr: Street life
“Taking back the streets” has been a familiar call over recent days. The brief dominance of younger members of our society rampaging through the roads and alleyways across England recently has certainly caused a stir and much debate often using the analogy of a disease – thus far producing a great deal of heat but little […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 23 August 2011
JAMA 17 Aug 2011 Vol 306 711 Randomized controlled trials of new interventions have become something of a rarity in JAMA of late, so I was interested to see this account of two industry-funded trials of pegloticase, a genetically engineered uricase designed to lower uric acid in people with treatment-resistant gout. This drug already has […]
Julian Sheather: Living with your worst nightmare
Once in a while I make a mistake at work – in spite of my best intentions, the human will out. By and large though, people are little inconvenienced by my blunders. And where they are, and where I cannot put them right, I am usually happy to apologise. Taken in the right way there […]
Muir Gray: Competition between systems for pride is effective and essential
Is care for people with rheumatoid disease better in Liverpool or Manchester? Is care for frail elderly people better in Somerset or Devon? Which big city has the best service for people with bipolar disorder? […]
Research highlights – 19 August 2011
“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. […]
Stephen Ginn: Whither the riots? A theory digest
Last week’s riots took place across different nights in multiple cities and involved no one ethnic group. The reasons behind them are complex and a unifying theory is likely to be evasive. Many of the explanations for the riots have been made to fit around already established political agendas. The left has focused on deprivation […]
Douglas Noble on the riots
The recent riots in London and across the UK have been an awakening for many to realise the deep seated social problems in post modern British society. The right look for thugs to be prosecuted, while the left demand further description and analysis of the complex “causes of the causes.” Both approaches are polarised and neither […]
Richard Smith: Zero based healthcare
You may have heard of zero based budgeting where an organisation starts from the assumption that nothing that was in last year’s budget will automatically be in next year’s and instead starts with a blank sheet. It’s a good way to think what is really essential and what adds most value. My friend, Ian Morrison, […]
Domhnall MacAuley: The silence next door
The sun streams in my surgery window overlooking the garden next door. For years our neighbours were older and the garden neatly manicured. The only sounds of summer were the occasional tinkle of tea cups on a sunny afternoon or the delicate trimming of rose beds. The garden eventually became too much, fewer cups for […]