“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Amongst the many misleading arguments, which are frequently used to promote useless treatments, this one occupies a prominent place. When I first […]
Month: March 2012
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 19 March 2012
JAMA 14 Mar 2012 Vol 307 1029 The Viewpoint pieces in JAMA this week are a strange mix of fact and fantasy. The first is a piece about industry payments […]
Sarah Walpole: The NHS sustainability day audit is “a very good place to start”
“The very beginning” has famously been advocated as “a very good place to start,” but when it comes to sustainability, this doesn’t seem to be such an easy mantra to […]
David Payne: Playing the sepsis game
There are 1.1m cases of sepsis each year in the US, costing $17bn to treat and accounting for 17% of hospital mortality. Doctors at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California […]
Andrew Moscrop: Security in Pakistan
Fluttering, close enough to touch almost, or soaring and swooping high overhead, dozens of brightly coloured kites fleck the square of late afternoon sky above me. Beyond, the snow-capped mountain […]
Nell Crowden: Climate week—cleaning up the sponsorship debate
Action on climate change is good for our health, good for our wealth, and good for our environment—our life-support system. We are all complicit in the degradation on our once-reliable, […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: The view from Bangladesh on global poverty reduction
A report released by the World Bank on 29 February highlighted that, despite the global recession, the number of people living on $1.25 per day has reduced across all regions […]
Martin McShane: A nation or the profession?
I sat down with a manager who has an in depth knowledge and experience of commissioning services for people with learning disabilities, as I wanted to understand why we seemed […]
Richard Smith: Records in the NHS: an Achilles heel
I always rather enjoy being processed by the NHS. Instead of my usual panoramic (and perhaps highly misleading) view I’m down in the scrub. What struck me in my latest […]
Neil Chanchlani: Where will your travel bug take you?
Medical students and doctors often talk about practising in other countries. I constantly hear the same tune echoed in lecture theatres or on the wards, “You can travel anywhere with […]