We need to recognise individuals as more than simply a patient […]
Dawn P Richards: The patient as a person
Kamal R Mahtani on telephone triage: The scale-up of innovations must have a robust evidence base
Telephone triage has been hailed as a way to let GPs work smarter, not harder, but is its widespread diffusion justified? […]
Farhana Mann and Sonia Johnson: Addressing loneliness will take more than appointing a minister
Enthusiasm must be matched by evidence and one size will not fit all […]
Sian Lockwood: Fix loneliness—appoint a minister
It is a terrible indictment of our society that so many people of all ages live lonely and isolated lives […]
Elizabeth Romer: Changing the way we talk about people who use drugs is a step towards challenging stigma
In a recent BMJ Opinion article, Ian Hamilton expressed his scepticism that “adopting a new vocabulary to describe people who have problems with drugs will reduce the stigma they experience.” I agree that language alone cannot reduce this kind of stigma or prejudice, but it’s a good place to start. As a final year medical […]
Richard Lehman’s journal reviews—12 February 2018
Richard Lehman reviews the latest research in the top medical journals […]
Kate Lovett: Women in medicine
We know that in many organisations and working cultures, equality is still far from a reality […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . The wheel of evidence
Last week I discussed the concept of teleoanalysis, in which different types of evidence from disparate sources are analysed either simultaneously or sequentially. To be clear, the term implies not the very last analysis that could be done, but a thorough systematic analysis of all the evidence available at the time, from, for example, randomised […]
Laurie Tomlinson: From patient to data and back again—how anonymised patient records can improve prescribing guidance
We often hear about the importance of “bench to bedside” medicine, how basic science research is translated into novel treatments. But this paper demonstrates an equally important concept: how anonymised health records provide a rich data source to address clinical questions, which in turn improves patient care. I work as a clinical academic, undertaking outpatient […]
Richard Smith: Time to rethink marriage
At a meeting on the politics of marriage last week at the London School of Economics three protagonists of very different stripe—the founder of the Marriage Foundation, a feminist philosopher, and a gay rights activist—all agreed that marriage was an outdated institution that should be rethought. My wife and I, who went together to the […]