Last week I met artists, musicians, poets, doctors, academics, therapists, nurses, and others with an interest in how the arts can help doctors hone their practice and improve patients’ experiences of healthcare. Coinciding with the 300th anniversary of Trinity College Dublin’s medical school, we were at a conference about “narratives of health and illness across […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 20 June 2011
JAMA 15 June 2011 Vol 305 2419 Here is a study which may have major resource implications for you and your commissioning group, because it seems to show that there is no mortality benefit over 6.7 years in men who undergo bariatric surgery. You can relax: there will be no need to find money to […]
David Payne: Nostalgia for closed hospitals
We have too many metropolitan acute hospitals and failing ones should be closed, said UK nursing leader Peter Carter in a front page story in Friday’s Times newspaper. He is right, says the newspaper in a leader article, and should be joined by other powerful voices, perhaps to silence the nostalgia junkies who mount campaigns […]
Aser García Rada: Spain’s healthcare revolution
Spain’s state run healthcare system, one of the best in the world according to the World Health Organization, is facing a serious threat. In the face of growing privatisation, cuts seem inevitable, especially after the overwhelming victory of the conservative Popular Party (PP) in the latest regional elections on 22 May. Since then the PP […]
Tiago Villanueva: The dawn of open access books
It is well known that doctors’ professional roles change throughout their career. A junior doctor is expected to be mainly committed to clinical duties, while the head of department may be mainly dedicated to management duties, with a minor or even no clinical workload. GP trainees usually start off their vocational training program by spending most of their time […]
Research highlights – 17 June 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. […]
Andrew Burd on meltdown at Guy’s
Each morning in Hong Kong I have a routine to check emails and visit a select number of websites to update myself on the world’s events. Naturally one of these websites is the BBC. And so it was this morning that my attention was drawn to a short video clip, which I predict may well […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Can developing country health systems prepare for complex disasters (the “zombie apocalypse”)?
In light of the recent blog by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that focused on household emergency preparedness for the zombie apocalypse and other disasters like hurricanes, I began to ask myself whether health systems can prepare for similarly complex disasters (1). […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant
Not anterior cruciate ligaments, metatarsals, or dodgy ankles – the sports medicine story of the week is Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant. Brave guy. Can you imagine the potential for abuse. Not just a few snide comments from behind the office photocopier, tongue wagging neighbours, or knowing smiles. He stands in front of 40,000 plus supporters every […]
Martin McShane: Appeasement
The changes the government is proposing in response to the NHS Future Forum might satisfy most of the people for some of the time but their implementation immediately struck me as posing a number of problems. Where the changes stick to principles, for instance around the NHS constitution, the role of the secretary of state, […]