The spread of A/H1N1 flu has propelled Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, into the limelight. On 11 June she was on television and radio programmes across the world, declaring that “the world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic” and that “further spread is considered inevitable” […]
Domhnall MacAuley on shared decision making
Democracy means involvement in decision making but it may not always lead to the best outcomes. With this simple analogy, Gerd Gigerenzer (Berlin), captured the potential hazards of clinical shared decision making in his keynote address to the 5th International Shared Decision Making Conference in Boston (June 14-17). […]
Richard Smith on how to improve your interaction with patients by 50%
If there was a pill that would improve your interaction with patients by 50% would you take it? I imagine you would. Well, I don’t know of such pill and can’t think that there will ever be such a thing, but there is a non-pharmacological way to improve you consulting—it’s called “values based practice.” […]
Richard Lehman’s journal blog, 17 June 2009
Richard is in Prufrockian mood as he picks out items of interest in the latest major medical journals. As well as quoting T S Eliot, he also pens his own ditty about a zika virus outbreak on the island of Yap. […]
Harvey Marcovitch on censorship, squeamishness, and same sex desire
Older readers will remember when the Medical Defence Union had a telegraphic address – Damocles. Younger readers may not know that he was another of those Greek mythological characters to whom the gods or their employers gave a tough time – in his case suspending a sword over his head by a single hair. Oh, […]
Ulrike Schmidt on swine flu fear and loathing in Mexico…and London
My flight to Cancun, Mexico, to attend the Conference of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) was scheduled for Sunday, 26th of April. The day before there were several anxious emails about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico City, but a reassuring response from the AED president followed: of course the conference would go ahead.The […]
Tauseef Mehrali on meat free Mondays
My grandfather used to counsel my mother’s worries about my insatiable carnivorous tendencies as a child by suggesting that the only solution would be to ensure I gain a butcher as a father-in-law. I would frequently be teased at dinner parties when it looked like I was struggling to make it to dessert with mock […]
Domhnall MacAuley on epicurean epidemiology
Autres pays, autres coeurs? Part of the title of an early paper highlighting the relationship between dietary patterns, risk factors and ischaemic heart disease could have been the title of this meeting. Cardiovascular epidemiologists from Europe and beyond gathered in the land of the Ulster Fry to discuss the Mediterranean diet, the French paradox, and […]
Ohad Oren: How can medical students adapt to their ever changing profession?
“Medicine is an ever-changing science” goes the familiar message on the opening page of most medical textbooks. Judging by the rapid pace at which textbooks expand, you have to wonder whether that would be a good enough reason to abandon the written word for good. Lateral epicondylitis used to be learnt through reading and repetition; […]
Siddhartha Yadav on optimism in South Asia for health research
Last week was a research-filled week for me. Two biomedical papers to review in the early part of the week and the South Asian Forum for Health Research (SAFHeR) meeting towards the end. Could not ask for more. […]