I haven’t written for a month, but that is certainly not because there hasn’t been anything going on at the children’s hospital in Freetown. Rather, it is the opposite. It is hard to sit and reflect when there is so much going on. I’ll try to write up a few of the things from the past month […]
What we are reading: 28 May 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. […]
James Raftery: NICE – the beginning of the end—or a new beginning?
The coalition programme for government states: “We will create a cancer drugs fund to enable patients to access the cancer drugs their doctors think will help them, paid for using money saved by the NHS through our pledge to stop the rise in national insurance contributions from April 2011,” and “We will reform NICE and […]
Julian Sheather: Politics, genital mutilation, and the slow death of serious debate
Asked his opinion on the political issues of the day, Saul Bellow, the American novelist, would sometimes say that he was in favour of all the good things and opposed to all the bad ones. Bellow’s lovely little quip has been on my mind a good deal of late. […]
Domhnall MacAuley on WONCA Part II
The picture screamed at me. It was of a ragged traveller child playing by a caravan at a halting site strewn with rubbish. It could have been from our practice. To travel half way around the world and be confronted by the failures of our local health care was humbling and embarrassing. Millennium Development Goals, […]
Andrew Burd on burns research
I have just returned from Balikpapan in Indonesia, where I was speaking at the 14th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Indonesian Association of Plastic Surgeons. Indonesia is an amazing country having over 240 million people. There are just 100 plastic surgeons and two burns centres in this vast and extremely diverse country. On the flight […]
Richard Smith on the joy of walking
My wife hates walking. For her it means trudging through the rain and mist, cold, exhausted, wet to her underwear, and with five miles still to go to a smelly bed and breakfast. It can be exactly that, but for me walking 15 miles day after day is one of life’ s greatest pleasures. […]
Richard Feinmann on malaria in Lira, Uganda
Working as a doctor in Northern Uganda I wonder where to start with healthcare. Since 75% of diseases in Uganda are preventable and since there are very few health workers and little money, especially in a country which is so Kampalacentric, one probably has to follow the government’s prevention line. […]
Domhnall MacAuley on WONCA
“When you look in their mouth you can tell their social class.” Jan de Maeseneer used this stark example of dental caries to highlight continuing health inequality in the developing world in his opening address on the UN 2015 Millennium Development Goals. He listed the many areas where primary care can make a difference but […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: We are human: the homeless in Bangladesh
When the little woman in red arrived at the dissemination seminar of the Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction Programme (UPPR), I was dually impressed by her small size and that she bought her toddler with her. Although my three sons consume most of my time and effort outside of work, I’ve never been to a business meeting where someone […]