Hong Kongers have lived through more than their fair share of bird flu scares across the border in China over the last few years, and, of course, Sars in 2003 when 299 people in the city died of the disease. Then there was the cull of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population back in 1997. It’s […]
Joe Collier on being bald
I have been bald for most of my adult life. My hair started ‘thinning’ in my late teens. By my early 20s I no longer needed to brush it out of my eyes when playing sport. By 27 it had gone from the crown of my pate (save for some fine ‘baby’ hair) and all […]
Richard Thompson and Frank Wells on prescribing rights for retired UK doctors
The proposed introduction by the General Medical Council (GMC) of compulsory detailed assessment of doctors every five years, perhaps starting in November this year, is difficult for those not regularly working in clinical medicine to achieve. This revalidation will be necessary to maintain a licence to practise, and hence prescribe and administer prescription only medicines […]
Peter Lapsley on the value of patient information evenings
Like many observers of the National Health Service over the past few years, and like many people within it I suspect, I have become weary of the endless succession of changes that have been imposed on primary care – many of them no more than cost-cutting exercises dressed up as improved patient care. Weariness leads […]
Richard Smith on countering the “wicked problem” of the chronic disease pandemic
I spent two days last week in the seductive grandeur of Trinity College, Oxford, fretting about the global pandemic of chronic disease, but I left feeling optimistic—despite the pandemic raging as fiercely as ever. […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
The timing of organ donation requests and who is making the request may influence a family’s decision to donate a dying relative’s organs. This is the conclusion of a BMJ study. The study found that an organ donation request should not be made at the same time as relatives are told that their relative has […]
Richard Smith says make vegetarian food the norm at formal dinners
I’ve just attended a conference on preventing chronic disease, and something that appealed to me greatly was the idea that at all formal dinners (and my how I’ve suffered from formal dinners over the years) the main choice would be vegetarian. You’d have to request meat. The idea came from Susan Jebb, Head of Nutrition […]
Richard Lehman’s journal blog, 19 April 2009
This week, Richard immerses himself in diabetes (“What a mess”), before covering an extensive range of subjects from the polypill to suicide, IQ, hyperhidrosis, and “irritable” bowels – all the while planning to compile “The Good Death Cookbook” – maybe… […]
Liz Wager: If comment is cheap why is peer review so expensive?
As you know (since you are reading this), I blog, albeit sporadically. I do not Tweet (yet) but I’m fascinated by the frenzy of twittering and the explosion of opportunities to launch one’s opinions into cyberspace. […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
A BMJ analysis of using financial incentives to achieve healthy behaviour has stirred a debate in the press this week. News agency AFP wrote that, “Health authorities and corporations are increasingly offering money to people who quit smoking, lose weight or take medicine, despite uncertainty that such incentives work beyond a few months”. The Financial Times […]