David Gilbert: What’s stopping healthcare organisations appointing a patient director?

Dear Chief Executive, What’s stopping you appointing a Patient Director? I know you are struggling to keep your organisation’s head above water. I know the demands of the system and the seemingly inescapable tide of pressures—the demographics, the “expectations,” the limited capacity, the desire to uphold and even improve quality and safety. The money. The […]

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Cristian R. Montenegro: Improving interactions between clinicians and patients

Sociology has tried, with mixed success, to define a realm of analysis that goes beyond the individual, and to grasp what is “in-between,” using names like “interaction,” “structures,” “communication,” or “culture.” I mention this because, if we want to come up with ways to improve the relationship between doctors and patients, we need to try […]

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Richard Smith: What have I achieved in six years of teaching?

Yesterday as I flew home from teaching in Amsterdam for the last time, I wondered what I might have achieved in six (or perhaps it’s seven) years of teaching. Twice a year at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen) I have taught about non-communicable disease (NCD) on the “tropical doctors’ course,” […]

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Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Defining translational research

Over the past four weeks I have been exploring models of translational research using the metaphor of crossing bridges. I started by exploring the meanings of translation. It comes from the Latin noun translatio, from translatum, the irregular supine form of the verb transferre, to carry or cause to be carried from one place to […]

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Emma Cave: Brexit and the regulation of clinical trials

As the UK negotiates its exit from the EU, Emma Cave considers the implications for the implementation of the new Clinical Trials Regulation, likely to come into operation in 2018. The key regulatory challenge is to enhance the competitiveness of UK clinical trials without compromising ethical integrity. The EU Clinical Trials Directive 2001/20/EC sets out rules […]

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Simon Denegri: Is a better public debate about patient data on the horizon?

Few would argue that the public have been well served by the debate about how their data can support care and research now and in the future. After the shipwreck of care.data in 2014, efforts to communicate with the public have stalled. Indecision about the best way forward has gripped the medical research and healthcare […]

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