WHO recently released a medical school curriculum in patient safety. To date the number of downloads is in the 1000s. The curriculum includes teaching resources on systems thinking in healthcare, medical errors and other key areas of patient safety. […]
Richard Smith: Move money from the NHS to social care
When governments spend money on “health” they get lots of sickness but very little health. Increasing expenditure on healthcare—now 17% of GDP in the United States and 9% of GDP here—leads to more and more people clinging onto life in a seriously impaired state. Better, I believe, to recognise that death is a friend and […]
K M Venkat Narayan: A case of well-intentioned public health reductionism?
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently released its elegantly titled report, “A Population-Based Policy and Systems Change Approach to Prevent and Control Hypertension” (Washington, DC. National Academies Press, 2010). […]
Emily Spry has a new role model
Over the past month or so, things have been changing fast at the children’s hospital, thanks to my new hero, Professor Tamra Abiodun. […]
Martin McShane: Pathways don’t fit
The buzz word of late has been “pathways.” I guess that has been brought about by Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg’s article in the Harvard Business Review and their book Redefining Health Care. The problem with commissioning along pathways, as one of my General Practice colleagues put it so succinctly, is that they don’t fit. […]
Joe Collier on bad lecturing
Recently I attended a debate on aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. The venue was prestigious as was the audience. There were two speakers and each was given twenty minutes for presentation followed by ten for discussion. The first speaker addressed his title with a talk clearly prepared for the occasion: he entertained, used well-chosen illustrations, […]
Georg Röggla on a new and different perspective of dying
I have seen many people die in the nearly three decades I have worked as a clinician. I was, however, confronted with a totally different perspective of dying while attending a symposium “noch mal leben/vivere ancora [to live again]” on palliative care at the free university of Bozen/Bolzano in South Tyrol in Italy on February […]
K M Venkat Narayan: India’s Emerging Demography: A Tale of Two Health Challenges
Given the sheer size and complexity of the country, it is always impossible to talk of India in any singular or modest sense. India has the largest population of young people, and will add 220 million to her workforce by 2030. Wouldn’t that make India a young and vibrant country? […]
Tony Waterston and Jean Bowyer on doughnut rounds, children’s rights and house evictions
Ten years after the inception of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health teaching programme in the occupied Palestinian territories, the third 2 year cycle is about to start. The purpose of the team’s visit was to offer an Education for Educators course for new tutors. This was a two day course covering educational […]
What we’re reading – 26 February 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. […]