Should doctors advise people to limit the number of children they have for the sake of the environment, asks the latest bmj.com poll. Our decision to ask this question was triggered by a huge amount of weekend coverage of the editorial by John Guillebaud and Pip Hayes: Population growth and climate change.  Scotsman columnist Gerald Warner accuses doctors of being conscripted into the bogus “man-made” global warming hysteria who should stick to the day job instead of being missionaries for “progressive dogma.” more…

We’re used to checking out the internet for the lowdown on our holiday destinations or theatre review, but what about finding yourself a good doc? Tapping into the government’s Choice agenda (see Michael Cross’ BMJ feature), the website www.iwantgreatcare.org is the brainchild of doctors.net founder and former hospital doctor, Dr Neil Bacon. According to Bacon, its aim is to empower: “patients to share their experience, knowledge and opinions [so] we can drive changes and improvements in the health service that will benefit all”.

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It was perhaps inevitable that a list of up to 100 experts untainted by drug industry money might get people talking. Questions such as why is so-and-so on it or so-and-so not on it, how do you get on it, and isn’t it all just a bit po-faced anyway, might well be asked.

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As I write this my boss is discussing video on bmj.com with other senior colleagues, mainly to see if we should commit to providing more embedded video clips alongside news, comment, feature, and research articles. You might think this is a no-brainer. Other sites have been doing this successfully for years. And although it needn’t necessarily cost the earth, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. So I’d like your views on the three we’ve done to date. more…

Everyone is an expert in primary care. Newsagents, bar staff, waiters, hairdressers and little old ladies laden with shopping all have their own view. In the anonymity of a city you can tune in, unrecognised, to everyday conversations. Public opinion seems to be changing with GPs seen as overpaid, underworked, and not performing. The news is not good. more…

The only oestrogen in the room came from a packet. And, from my seat, no man had a full head of hair. It could have been a convention of replaced hips, knees and dodgy coronary arteries. Such was the age profile at the Sunday afternoon concert at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival that few could read the programme without glasses, and almost all must have struggled with the higher frequencies. more…

Start with Handel’s Alleluia chorus, include a fireworks display, lay on a dinner hosted by government, during which the director general of the WHO makes a cabaret style eulogy. Add addresses from global health gurus, contributions from European health ministers, a scattering of parallel sessions and you have the making of a notable conference. And so it proved to be. more…

Continuous publication marks a significant shift in BMJ’s publishing cycle. From now on we will be populating bmj.com with lots of new content on a daily basis, instead of using the weekly print issue as the catalyst for a mass upload of articles. The homepage will change more frequently (as well as the pages showing latest news, research comment and education), and there will be a rolling table of contents that will show every article published in the past seven days. more…

The waiting is nearly over. After months of speculation, expectation, consultation, and criticism, the Darzi report on the future direction of the NHS in England comes out on Monday. Polyclinics will be part of it, but there will be much more besides. more…

Far out. About as far away as you can get; 300 km above the Arctic circle in Tromso, Norway, at the World Congress on Sports Injury Prevention. more…