It’s 1:00 am. My colleague and I have just returned from a surprise visit to the hospital. Three times a month we do spot checks on the wards; periodically we check during the early or late shifts and occasionally during the night and weekend shifts. The reason for these checks is that the Welbodi Partnership […]
US Highlights – 8 October 2010
We’ve been working on how to help specialists make better use of our content. So this week we’re launching the first of what will be a series of specialty portals available on bmj.com. These three new portals focus on diabetes, oncology, and clinical trials, pulling together everything we’ve published on those topics in the BMJ, […]
Richard Smith: Will cuts lead to radical change?
One response to a deep financial cut is to change radically, to do things in a wholly different way. An alternative response is to shrink back to old ways on a smaller scale. I’ve been wondering for a while what will happen with the NHS, hoping for radical change but fearing unchallenging retrenchment. […]
Edward Davies: What is going on with workforce planning?
Our report this week on problems with specialty trainee year 3 (ST3) applications is merely the latest in a litany of mediocrity to afflict doctors at every single stage of their careers. In the past few months it has transpired that there may not be enough foundation places for medical students, then that a quarter […]
David Payne: Does London need the City?
A young woman started work in London this week and her starting salary is the same figure paid to her aunt when she first moved to the capital after college in 1985. A relative of mine was recently offered his first paid job in journalism in London. His salary – £16 000 – is around […]
Elizabeth Loder on the best thing about the Ig Nobel awards
It really was a dark and stormy night as I joined several hundred other geeks and nerds who ignored the remnants of tropical storm Nicole on September 30. We braved high wind gusts in order to attend the 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Awards in Memorial Hall on the Harvard campus. The BMJ hired a […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Systematic reviews of health systems and policy research – where do they belong?
Just as some people proudly announce that they are alcoholics, I’m proud to tell the world that I am a Cochrane reviewer. There cannot be many BMJ readers who don’t know what that means, but just in case it’s a calling, something akin to joining a monastery. In support of my work, I have studied […]
Sarah Walpole: from medic to media – on the health effects of Tar Sands
Seeing the call for medics to attend this year’s Camp for Climate Action, I was keen to lend support for a worthy cause. I’m usually a reluctant responder when it comes to calls for a doctor in the house, however, so I elected to attend under the guise of journalism and take on medic duties […]
Domhnall MacAuley on Sailing to Byzantium
Yeats’s poem (Sailing to Byzantium), written as he approached old age, looked to the wonders of Byzantium, and its immortal beauty. I would never have dreamt, sitting in that classroom long ago, that I would one day visit its modern day incarnation as Istanbul. (Even less that I would grow older too.) Visiting Istanbul, for […]
Douglas Noble on maternity care
Five days in hospital for the delivery of our first child was a sobering reminder of the harsh realities of life (our newborn had a post-natal stay on ITU), the inner workings of the NHS system, and on several occasions a personal reminder of just how far we still have to go to realise high […]