BMJ Deputy Editor Trish Groves blogs from the Council of Science Editors (CSE) annual meeting in Vancouver. “Accurate and transparent reporting is like turning on the light before you clean up a room: it doesn’t clean it for you but does tell you where the problems are” (Frank Davidoff, editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, […]
Helen Barratt: Testing times
I’m looking forward to yet another May bank holiday weekend revising for exams. In an idle moment the other day, I realised that I’ve been buried behind a pile of books at this time of year for the last sixteen years (give or take a couple), with school exams, then medical school assessments, and now […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Drugtaking in sport
We now know the prescription for sporting success. The pharmacopeia outlined last week in the letter from Victor Conte revealed by British sprinter Dwain Chambers, is staggering but unsurprising. Drug use is well recognised in sport but very difficult to quantify. The occasional positive test or even the large scale investigation of the Tour de France creates […]
Anna Donald: Confessions of a chemo-veteran
I’ve spent the last week reading. I haven’t done much else, because my cough has reached the point where it’s slowing down my movements: constant coughing fits are tiring. On Friday night, I declined an invitation to a cocktail party and on Saturday, to a dinner party, for fear of coughing all over the guests […]
Anna Donald: Mind and body
Thank you again to people sending such encouraging comments. I can’t tell you how uplifting it is to wake up to such lovely responses. A few people have asked me to explain why I wrote that having cancer is “fascinating, humbling, and maddening.” So I’ll try to oblige. Not all in one blog. […]
Liz Wager: Training and the placebo effect
I’ve been at the Vienna School of Clinical Research running a publication workshop for an enthusiastic bunch of doctors, researchers and drug company folk. Back home, catching up on my reading, Diana Wood’s BMJ editorial on problem based learning struck a chord. She argues that we don’t really know whether problem based learning works better than […]
Helen Barratt: Counting the cost
My mother was horrified when she discovered I’d become “one of those people who refuse patients drugs because they’re too expensive.” Barely a week goes by without another story in the media about someone somewhere who has been “denied” a treatment. Usually accompanied by a photo of them with their concerned relatives, the language is […]
Julian Sheather on the Wellcome exhibition “Life Before Death”
Jannik Boehmfeld is dead. He is six years old, a year younger than my eldest son. He is lying on his back. His mouth is open but his eyes are shut. […]
Deborah Cohen attends the Periodical Publishers Association Awards
Ever thought the BMJ would be competing in the same publishing awards as Nuts magazine? To be fair, some of you probably did – not least because of the extensive coverage of anatomy. […]
Anna Donald: Making meaning in the now, for the now
First, I want to thank the many people who have posted such thoughtful comments to this blog. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed, though not surprised, by people’s generosity (again and again, cancer has revealed to me the kindness of strangers as well as friends). To my embarrassment, I haven’t been able to get my login […]