We are all more interested in the conflicts of interests of others than we are in our own, and editors are no exception. Having preached to authors and reviewers on conflict of interest, editors have largely neglected their own, but an important and fascinating paper in PloS Medicine shows how editors can be exposed to […]
They asked me to go on the radio. Andy Holmes, double Olympic gold medallist rower had just died of Leptospirosis. After a long break away from the sport, he returned two years ago and, it seems, he caught the disease through his renewed contact with the sport. It is relatively rare, with just 40 cases per annum in the UK, […]
JAMA 27 Oct 2010 Vol 304 Perhaps the greatest prize in preventive medicine this century will be the discovery of an effective non-surgical intervention to cure obesity. This study doesn’t quite achieve that, but at least it shows that there is still something to be gained from those two old mainstays, diet and exercise. The […]
Now that I am out of the closet about being a Cochrane reviewer, I will further come clean on the fact that I have attended the Cochrane Colloquia for the last three years as well as the last Campbell Colloquium held in Oslo in 2009. More than just a fabulous networking opportunity, the meetings represent the […]
“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. […]
Four hundred years ago on European maps the land that became Russia was called “Tartaria.” Now Tatarstan is a national republic in the Russian Federation. It is small by Russian standards — the size of Netherlands — economically stable, and has an educated population. Recently a conference took place at the local Medical Academy entitled […]
Eighteen months ago I had my first child, and ever since I’ve loved listening to other people’s birth stories – long, short, blissful, or terrifying – I’m all ears. I got a ticket as soon as I saw the London Film Festival was showing No Woman, No Cry, a 60 minute documentary about maternal health directed by the model Christy Turlington Burns. Did it […]
I think our role is quite well covered by the slogan for sports footwear: “Just do it!” It’s satisfying to sit beside a doctor who is not a paediatrician but a gynaecologist – he’s been assigned the children’s HIV clinic in this small provincial hospital. He is reading from the slim, precise manual on how […]
We did something a bit different today as an executive team. We used the “goldfish bowl” technique to explore how to support the transition from PCT-led to Consortia-based commissioning. I apologise if you already know what this technique entails. For those of you who don’t; we put four chairs in the middle of a circle […]
I. The power to move mountains? The commotion pealed like thunder in the distance. It was unmistakable. We turned the corner of the mountain dirt road and came upon over 40 farmers heaving in unison on four ropes that dropped off the side of the cliff’s edge. The roads in this part of the Sierra […]