About twice a week somebody asks me: “What exactly do you do these days?” Many doctors knew me as the editor of the BMJ, and they have a vague memory that I left to do something disreputable. My brother advises me to answer: “I’m back laying pavements for the council.” That stops further inquiries, he […]
It’s easy to assume that things are as they’ve always been. This of course is not the case and recently I discovered that the rate of economic growth during the UK’s industrial revolution, one of my native land’s most significant upheavals, rarely exceeded 1%. Nowadays, for a country’s economy to be admired, economic growth needs […]
My name is Joseph Jacob and I am a trainee radiologist at Kings College Hospital, London. In early 2009, I was given the opportunity through a sabbatical, to return to work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors without Borders) – whom I had previously worked for in Darfur in 2006-7. Though I chose a […]
My name is Philipp du Cros and I am a doctor working as a tuberculosis (TB) programme implementer for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) UK. What does that mean? My work involves visiting MSF programmes and helping them to start providing or improve existing TB services. […]
I have just been to a breakfast conversation on genetics and health care. I am not at my best early on, but as the LSE had assembled an impressive list of experts, I made the cold early morning trip to Simpsons on the Strand. The conversation had to do with the likely impact of the […]
Heading for the slopes? Sunshine, blue skies and an exhilarating holiday. Cant wait! You don’t need any gloomy doom sayer spoiling your excitement. But, as you board your flight, look around at your fellow passengers- mostly fairly well off, youngish and middle aged, setting off for a well earned winter break. Not as fit as […]
Worryingly, Freetown is starting to look normal. Clearly, this needs correction. So, on the long commute back from the hospital on Friday, I tried to look again with fresh eyes and note down some of the sights for you. […]
I want to speak of a certain dread – call it a patient’s dread. I speak from experience. In my early twenties I went under the knife a handful of times. A little problem with a psoas abscess. All over now, thankfully, excepting the memories, but it is out of those memories that I want […]
Why was I not surprised last week to hear that talks between the BMA’s GP Committee and the government had broken down when the BMA had asked for GP targets to be relaxed, to free up time to deliver the extended the swine flu vaccination programme to children between the ages of 6 months and […]
Former UK drugs tsar Mike Trace spoke out last week about what he perceives to be a territorial dispute between two Whitehall departments over the most appropriate treatment for heroin-addicted prisoners. The alleged in-fighting between the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Department of Health (DoH) centres on methadone prescription in prisons and, Trace claims, exposes […]