Here in Freetown, both the doctors’ and nurses’ associations have decided to go on strike with immediate effect. The strike has been precipitated by the Free Healthcare Initiative, which is due to remove user fees for healthcare for pregnant and nursing women and children under 5 years old on the 27th April 2010, Sierra Leone’s […]
Georg Röggla: Intensive care and emergency medicine in Brussels
More than 5000 participants from about 90 countries all around the world took part at the 30th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine in Brussels, Belgium from March 9th to March 12th, 2010. The declared goal of this meeting was to celebrate 30 years of intensive care and emergency medicine and hopefully help […]
Patrick Basham: The DoH is wrong about cessation
I’m very disappointed in the section on cessation contained within the UK Department of Health’s new tobacco control strategy. There are several problems with the DoH’s ideas on cessation (and I’ll have more to say about them in future posts), but one of the most significant is its claims about how to quit smoking most […]
Richard Smith: Should drug companies be free to give information to patients?
If a patient rings a drug company asking for information about one of the company’s drugs that he or she is taking, the company cannot answer. Companies are forbidden to “come between” patients and their doctors. Is that right? This question was discussed last week at a conference in Monte Carlo of some 3000 regulators, […]
Julian Sheather on banned words
I know not whether to laugh or cry. Into my inbox has just popped an index prohibitorum, a list of words drawn up by the Local Government Association that must not be used when providing information to the public. As a word-haunted liberal I am immediately – and quite properly for a liberal – in […]
Martin McShane: Control
Have some fun with Google. Type in “British Medical Association says yes.” It will give you about 650,000 results. Typing in “British Medical Association says no” gives you nearly 12 million! Of course this is entirely specious, irrelevant nonsense. Or is it? Having crossed the floor from front line clinical practice to full time management, […]
Tony Waterston on climate change and maternal and child health
Connecting four countries by video on a Friday afternoon could be an exercise in technological disaster But with obstetricians, midwives, and paediatricians present at the delivery, a safe and healthy passage was guaranteed, and indeed all went smoothly at the first global conference on climate change and maternal and child health held at the Royal […]
Helen Jaques: New publishing models at the BMJ Editors’ seminar
This week at the BMJ Editors’ seminar I heard about two innovative new publishing models: Nature Communications from Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and PLoS Currents from Public Library of Science. Nature Communications is an online only, multidisciplinary, “middle tier” research journal being launched this spring by NPG. […]
Becky Freeman: Is an iPhone good for your health?
Unless you intentionally block out all pop culture and media from your life, you’ve likely seen more than your fair share of Apple promotions. From the dancing silhouettes in iPod ads, to laptop product placement in tv and film, and the overhyped media launches, much has been written about the marketing prowess of Apple and […]
What we’re reading 12 March 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. […]