In the past 10 days or so I’ve settled into some sort of routine at KCMC, seeing patients on the wards in the morning, and in the afternoons either following up on administrative matters or trying to arrange teaching sessions, the latter with some small degree of success. […]
David Kerr on Barack Obama’s visit to Silicon Valley
Here on the edge of Silicon Valley we have just had a visit from Barack Obama. His schedule included closed door meetings with the tsars of technology; Jobs (Apple), Zuckerberg (Facebook), and Schmidt (Google). Although the meeting agenda is unknown there is a suspicion in the technosphere that the president is hoping for substantial help […]
Research highlights – 18 February 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 Is there an association between enterovirus infection and autoimmunity or type 1 diabetes? How effective was a programme for cardiovascular health […]
Bruce Weaver: IPPF launches films about contraception
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a global organisation formed in 1952 with the aim of promoting sexual and reproductive health around the world, especially in developing countries. It operates in over 170 countries. Yesterday, it launched six short films depicting six young women in various countries across the globe. The aim of these […]
Liz Wager: Mournful numbers
I love the fact that many words have multiple meanings. This multiplicity sometimes sets up strange resonances or odd mental images, especially if you pick the wrong meaning initially. The other day I was running a publication workshop and talking about tables and figures, when I got horribly tangled up by the fact that figures […]
Richard Smith: Competition versus integration
“Competition in health care should be tactical not ideological.” That was the main message from a recent debate on “Competition versus integration in the NHS” organised by the Cambridge Health Network and the King’s Fund. In case you haven’t heard of the Cambridge Health Network, it might crudely and unkindly be described as the opposition […]
Richard Smith: How to get people in the NHS to act on environmental sustainability?
“There’s a 50% chance that humans will be extinct by the end of the century because of climate change,” said Hugh Montgomery, director of the UCL Institute for Human Health, at last week’s conference on environmental sustainability. I’d heard that before, but it made me think of my daughter, who can expect to live for […]
David Kerr: Social medicine
“The UK coalition government’s proposals for health reform have generated much heat without a great deal of light. One predictable response has been the “concern” that the private sector is about to take over the running of the health service. Worse still is the prospect of turning the NHS into a clone of the US […]
Tomasz Pierscionek on student protests against NHS reforms
Medical students and doctors belonging to the newly created organisation “Big Society NHS” organised a Valentine’s Day themed protest against the Health and Social Care Bill, currently being debated in parliament. The bill, if passed through parliament, would pave the way for free-market style reforms within the NHS. The demonstration was held outside the Sherfield […]
Richard Smith: The breast cancer epidemic
The world is on the cusp of a major epidemic of breast cancer, said Peter Boyle, head of the international prevention research institute in Lyon, France, at a conference on breast cancer in Oman last weekend. The incidence of breast cancer has tripled in the past 30 years and is expected to double again by […]