A group of doctors warned last week that if climate change is not effectively tackled we all face a health catastrophe. What they did not say is that the catastrophe is already here for millions of the world’s poorest people, because when they get sick, or even have a baby, they cannot afford the medical […]
Oscar Yang: A Sino-Kiwi in Scotland
So finally, when dusk fades into darkness, I sit down at my computer to type my first BMJ blog entry. I’m sitting at the warmly-lit dinner table in my second floor apartment on South Clerk Street in Edinburgh, looking over the quiet darkened streets mapping this auspicious city. The calm contrasts with the haste of the day. Busy people, heavy traffic. Tourists […]
Dr Harry’s Netlines: Crystal ball gazing
It is always good fun to speculate what will be happening in medicine in years to come. There are so many areas to think about clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic breakthroughs; political and economic aspects, and technological innovations. It is the latter, I want to discuss and speculate about. […]
Joe Collier: A drink for Mr Teetotaller?
Two things are certain. First, I am a teetotaller. Second, UK society (in common with society in Europe generally) is awash with the influence of alcohol. If ever there were a risk of a clash of interests, this is one. […]
Louise Kenny: It’s a mystery
One of the most exciting aspects of working here is the opportunity to have a good rummage among the rarities of diagnoses that I learnt about for the MRCP. There have been a few cases now, which have rung a big bell in my head, related to conditions which I never thought to save space […]
Douglas Noble: Tales of patient safety from the frontline for junior doctors: incident reporting
The NHS has so far accumulated almost 3 million incident reports, well on the way to being as tall as the British Telecom Tower if they were all piled up one on top of the other. Many significant research studies have identified the main barrier to incident reporting as lack of feedback to the reporter. Sound […]
David Kerr: UK and US healthcare- public option is the universal, high quality, and efficient way
Writers of the open letter to America in defence of the NHS rebut clearly and concisely some of the more ludicrous charges leveled against our system of healthcare. It’s a debate that on the whole leaves me cold. The idea that wittingly a Government would allow a huge chunk of its population to go without proper healthcare […]
Helen Macdonald on Panorama Special; swine flu
The BBC trailed it as everything you need to know about swine flu. The title probably raised my expectations too high. A street poll near the start of the programme showed that the public were a bit confused about who was at the most risk of swine flu, so it seemed the programme had some […]
Siddhartha Yadav on the challenges in reducing maternal mortality in Nepal
Wednesday was an unusual day for the prime minister of Nepal. Right when he was about to leave for the capital from Nepalgunj in his helicopter, he received a call from one his acquaintances pleading to air-rescue a pregnant woman with placental haemorrhage from Rukum, a remote hilly district of Nepal. And so a rescue […]
Olivia Roberts: More tales from the UN number-crunchers
Quick follow on from the last blog post on the wonderful world of UN statistics. This time the Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME) has ploughed through country data. Good news: The estimated global mortality for children under-5 in 2008 is 65 per 1,000 live births, versus 90 in 1990. Bad news: Due to […]