On 29 June 2011 the European Medicines Agency (EMA) collected a group of journal editors to introduce to us to, and get our views on, their fairly recently launched European […]
Month: June 2011
Tiago Villanueva: Barbara Starfield’s legacy
Primary healthcare gurus can’t compete with the ranks of top film or sports stars in terms of global notoriety, but Barbara Starfield, who died earlier this month in California aged 78, was one […]
Yasir Hameed: Power, fuel, food, and water shortages in Yemen
Nearly two weeks have passed since my last update here, and the situation in Yemen is still deteriorating rapidly. One of the most shocking reports I have come across said that power […]
James Raftery: Avastin, Lucentis, and NICE
A useful update was provided at a meeting this week sponsored by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and Patients Involved in NICE (the National Institute for Health […]
David Pencheon: Future-proof hospitals? Go straight for future-proof systems…
Chris Ham’s article in last week’s Observer newspaper (“Politicians have ducked hard decisions on the NHS for far too long” Sunday 19 June 2011), and a news story in this week’s BMJ […]
Ian Williams: Comics and medicine
I have just returned from five days in Chicago, from a conference organised by myself and four American colleagues. Entitled Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness, the event […]
Richard Smith: How important are the “early origins of health?”
How important is what happens to you in fetal and neonatal life in determining whether you develop heart disease later in life? I found myself thinking about that question a […]
Muir Gray:”The most effective screening programme ever”
“The most effective screening programme ever,” this was Richard Doll’s gentle jest when I was director of national screening programmes. Aware of my efforts to ensure that screening did much […]
Martin McShane: A tale of two citizens?
Four years ago I participated in scenario planning. The document that emerged is as relevant today as it was then – perhaps because it was looking “Over the Horizon,” taking […]
Tessa Richards: Prioritising patient’s views reaps rich rewards
What will it take to persuade monolithic health systems to put patient’s priorities at the heart of what they do? As researchers, health professionals, and patients debated this question at […]