There’s nothing like a gigantic medical meeting to make one feel inconsequential. I certainly did as I milled about the cavernous San Diego convention center with thousands of other doctors at the 2011 American College of Physicians (ACP) meeting. Tolstoy would have approved: “How good it is to remember one’s insignificance.” The ACP is the […]
David Kerr: Using social media in the NHS
We recently had another visit from Barack Obama to the San Francisco Bay area. However, rather than sampling the delights of the city, the President drove south down route 101 to Palo Alto and the headquarters of Facebook. The President was the guest of honor at a “town hall event” moderated by Facebook CEO Mark […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 3 May 2011
JAMA 27 Apr 2011 Vol 305 1625 Obedience is no longer a fashionable concept, though it was once prized as the most essential virtue in religion and society (see Psalm 119 vv1-176, Dante’s De Monarchia, Hobbes’ Leviathan; look up the meaning of the Arabic word islam). Nowadays we go to endless lengths to persuade ourselves […]
Martin McShane: The calm
As a child I remember standing on a beach and marvelling at how unnaturally still and calm everything seemed. It was a few hours before a hurricane hit the coast. The financial year has been accounted for – literally. The finance team worked seven day weeks to complete all the work that was necessary and […]
Richard Smith: Waiting for Putin
Along with about 600 other people, 90 of them health ministers from all over the world, I spent two hours recently waiting for Vladimir Putin, prime minister of the Russian Federation, to arrive at a meeting in Moscow. It was dull but did give us “NCD nuts” a chance to catch up with each other and […]
Sandra Lako: World Malaria Day in Sierra Leone
World Malaria Day was this week and unfortunately, although a preventable disease, malaria still kills many people in the developing world. At the children’s hospital I work at, we see malaria cases everyday. Some cases are very severe; the children are literally on death’s doorstep and other cases are mild and improve with oral medication. […]
Tracey Koehlmoos on open versus free access: lesson learnt
Out of the blue on 28 March my colleagues and I received notification that all Lancet journals are now available to everyone in Bangladesh. As you can imagine, this is excellent news for those of us who like to read the Lancet so that it did feel a little like Christmas especially for the systematic review […]
Anya Sarang: Russian prisons as a source of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis presents a serious problem to public health all over the world and especially in countries with developing economies. In spite of the availability of effective treatment for simple tuberculosis, annually it is responsible for more than 4500 deaths worldwide. More often than not, this is connected with late diagnosis of the disease and the […]
Sarah Welsh: Becoming a centenarian
How long do you expect to live… 70? 80? Maybe even 90? Many consider being around in your 80s is an impressive feat. Yet, new figures suggest as many as 11 million people alive today will live to see their 100th birthday. According to new data from the Office for National Statistics, over a quarter […]
Jochen Schmitt and Hywel Williams: Harmonising outcome measures for eczema in clinical trials and routine care
Eczema (synonymous with atopic dermatitis and atopic eczema) affects about one in five preschool children, up to one in eight adolescents, and approximately 3% of adults. The constant itching caused by eczema frequently leads to sleep problems and other limitations in the lives of the patients and their families. A major problem that currently hinders […]