Last week, more than 3,000 global leaders working in the field of maternal and reproductive health gathered in Washington, D.C for the Women Deliver 2010 conference. With the theme of delivering solutions for girls and women, the conference focused on sharing solutions that can help us achieve the millennium development goals on maternal and reproductive […]
Peter Arnold: I don’t know
“I don’t know.” Three truthful little words which we doctors don’t seem to be able to say to our patients. Why not? Have we joined our patients in believing that there is an answer to every one of their problems and concerns? That there is a diagnosis for every discomfort or unhappiness? Think DSM IV. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Elite performance in endurance sports
To meet with the president of the American College of Sports Medicine…you arrange to go for a jog. A family doctor, team doctor, researcher, departmental chair and now a major leader in American health, Tom Best (Ohio State University), has achieved a lot but he took a difficult road and, he and his family, have […]
Paula Williamson and Tracey Howe: Scottish minister links standardised outcome set to improvements in health
It was great to hear Shona Robison, minister for public health and sport in Scotland, suggesting that “developing datasets will enable Scotland to be the first country to develop such a rich source of data which will in turn help develop better services for patients.” The minister was speaking at the start of the musculoskeletal […]
Julian Sheather: Does medicine do any good?
Am I alone in feeling that faint thrill in the air, the thrill that comes in the interregnum between the expectation of pain and its arrival? There’ s probably a word for it, something Germanic and angular, compounded from the lexica of psychopathology. […]
Andrew Burd: “The Goddess of Democracy”
The days leading up to 4th June, the 21st anniversary of the shooting of prodemocracy protestors in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, give pause to some sombre reflection in Hong Kong. Last year there was plentiful coverage of this time, particularly by the BBC. This year something rather remarkable happened that appears to have gone unnoticed by […]
Richard Smith: Are doctors part of the solution or part of the problem?
The Royal College of Physicians and various other medical bodies want doctors to be serious about tackling the social determinants of health, and have held a conference on the topic. There were some brilliant speeches (plus some duds of course), but all day I found myself asking whether doctors were part of the solution or […]
What we’re reading – 11 June 2010
In the BMJ editorial office, we often come across interesting articles, blogs, and web pages. We thought we would share these with you. Some are medical, some techie, and some just general. […]
Richard Smith: University of California takes on Nature Publishing Group
The University of California has told the Nature Publishing Group that it will suspend its subscriptions to the group’s 67 journals if it does not relent over its decision to raise its charges to the university by 300%. The university will also urge its staff not to submit to and review for the journals and to […]
Kayte McCann on dealing with the death of a close family member
Dealing with the death of a close family member, whether expected or otherwise, is perhaps one of the most harrowing things you can deal with. Doug Kamerow dealt with the death of his mother after multiple stays in hospital and long term care facilities, and writes about it in the BMJ. She had Alzheimer’s disease […]