My consulting room is full of ghosts. Shadowy figures whose tears or trauma hover over the patient’s chair. The room has a memory and sometimes shares its thoughts. A word […]
Year: 2011
Martin McShane: A day at the Mid Staffordshire foundation trust enquiry
I was privileged to be invited to the patient experience seminar being held as part of the Mid Staffordshire enquiry. I felt as though I was participating in one of […]
Research highlights – 4 November 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research […]
Grania Brigden: Paediatric tuberculosis: out of the dark
Children with tuberculosis have been neglected for too long. Children tend to have paucibacillary disease and therefore are less infectious than adults, meaning they have not been prioritised by the WHO […]
Desmond O’Neill: Quantitative easing – the academic version
The economic downturn has given us all a crash course in the arcane language of economics. A fine example is “quantitative easing,” a sober and serious sounding euphemism for the […]
Anna Dixon: Innovations in the healthcare workforce needed to deliver productivity improvements
The NHS in England faces a huge challenge over the next decade. The tighter public spending settlement for the NHS means the NHS will have to increase productivity in the […]
David Pencheon: Good general practice is sustainable general practice and vice versa
Once again the RCGP’s Annual conference last week in Liverpool produced a wealth of stimulating and topical debates – from the ethics of whether doctors should take a lead in […]
Nigel Hawkes: Give a Kidney – One’s Enough
The late Sir Jimmy Saville devoted much of his life to public service, raising £40 million for various good causes including hospitals, and even working shifts as a hospital porter. […]
Maham Khan: Foundation programme application, London or bust.
The news this week from the UK foundation programme office (UKFPO) cast a devastating blow to the confidence of many applicants, when they announced that not only was this year’s […]
Richard Smith: Time to get rid of health professionals?
Can we imagine a world 20 years from now that no longer has health professionals? Instead of regulated health professionals anybody could offer healthcare—and perhaps much of it would be […]