“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. […]
Anjum Khan on HIV and TB in Uganda
Uganda is the colour blue, that intense, clear sky. Uganda is green; bright, vivid trees swimming with life. Uganda is red, crumbling soil everywhere. Some things stay with me; the insistent caw of the gaa-gaa bird, the silent old gum trees near the hospital, the eternal curiosity of the children. […]
US highlights – 3 September 2010
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Julian Sheather: Doctors’ religious beliefs and end of life care
Early on in my ‘career’ in ethics – I put the word in scare quotes not only because the idea that my rather shapeless crashing about should be dignified with the name ‘career’ makes me chuckle, but also because the idea of a career in ethics itself has always felt like a category error – […]
Richard Smith: Medicine needs to feel defeat
Defeat is a marvellous thing. It can refresh in a way that never happens after victory. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought this morning as I awoke, if medicine were to feel defeated and have to rethink its purpose? […]
James Raftery on bevacizumab for metastatic colorectal cancer
Roche’s bevacizumab (Avastin) is in the news again. This has a reasonable claim to be a wonder drug, but for macular degeneration, a disease for which Roche refuses to license it. Instead Roche has tried and failed several times to have the drug recommended by NICE for lung, breast, and colorectal cancer, all at an […]
Domhnall MacAuley: shadows in sports medicine
Sport is seductive. Its exciting, thrilling, and emotional. Watching a sport you enjoy, it is hard not to become drawn into the drama. As a doctor involved with the players, it is difficult to remain dispassionate. When Wendy Chapman sat before the GMC, with events drawn out by counsel, the scene was very different to […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 31 August 2010
JAMA 25 Aug 2010 Vol 304 859 The first paper in JAMA comes from Denmark for a second week running, meaning that I have to rummage through Hamlet yet again for a suitable quotation. But alas (poor Yorick), I can find nothing at all about antiviral drugs used in pregnancy. I can’t even find anything […]
Julian Sheather: Medicine and nature
Synchronicity. The meaningful coincidence of causally unrelated events. It was the Swiss psychologist and all round weaver of the wind Carl Jung who coined the word. […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Good Health at Low Cost: the importance of political commitment
Almost any student of global public health will be familiar with the seminal work Good Health at Low Cost. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the release of the original book, the Rockefeller Foundation has commissioned an updated version of the book that includes five new countries or states: Ethiopia, Tamil Nadu, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand […]