Major advances in drug therapy are rare, particularly in the neglected field of tropical diseases. So it was quite appropriate that when the results of the largest trial ever done on severe malaria were presented in Atlanta last November, they were met with cheers from the crowd. The trial, which found a clear mortality reduction […]
Ryuki Kassai: Fukushima one month on
Ironically, the annual sakura (cherry flowers) season has just come to Fukushima when one month has passed since the first earthquake and tsunami hit us. Fukushima is famous for its sakura; we have the 1000-year-old Takizakura (cascade sakura), one of the three best cherry trees of Japan, and the Hanamiyama (cherry-blossom viewing hills) wholly covered […]
Muir Gray: Japan, a little good news
I have been to Japan on a number of occasions and learned a great deal from the people I have met there, and from what I have read. […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 26 April 2011
JAMA 20 Apr 2011 Vol 305 1545 Chronic kidney disease, pre-diabetes, subclinical hypothyroidism, vitamin D insufficiency, attention deficit disorder, asymptomatic systolic dysfunction, borderline personality disorder, early chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pre-hypertension, Barrett’s oesophagus: you may think you’re healthy, but how do you know you haven’t got any or all of these? Wake up! Have the […]
Research highlights – 22 April 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. […]
Douglas Noble on the fragmentation of public health
Talk to almost any public health specialist and they’ll express their biggest concern about the current NHS reforms in England as fragmentation of the public health service. To understand why fragmentation is a bad thing, we first need to know what it is that could be broken up. Public health has traditionally consisted of three main domains […]
Fiona Pathiraja: Twitter – the medium and the message?
In his BMJ blog last week, David Kerr asked whether Twitter would ever be used for healthcare. As soon as this blog was posted, the Twitter healthcare community was buzzing with responses including: “It already is [being used for healthcare]: we are developing healthcare through our discussions,” “Does he mean the same Twitter that is […]
Tiago Villanueva: National health services are a great thing, particularly in times of financial austerity
Looking at my country’s national health service which is chiefly funded by taxes, from a user’s rather than from a provider’s perspective (or better, from a passive rather than from an active perspective), gives me plenty of food for thought. A relative of mine was recently admitted to the local hospital in very serious condition. They had not […]
Peter Lapsley: Compassion in dying
Over the past fifty years or so, science and medicine have been remarkably successful in extending people’s lives. But health professionals, focused on curing illness, or preventing or delaying death, have been far less successful in respecting people’s wishes with regard to the nature of their deaths – where they wish to die and the […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Palliative care
Dying is not much fun. As a GP I have seen a lot of it. Its not the very end bit that bothers me. The last breath is, paradoxically, often serene and peaceful. What I find most difficult is that wretched time that starts when hope is torn away and illness sates its unrelenting hunger. The […]