Low standards of evidence for medical device regulation in Europe have led to clinical concerns about the potential dangers posed by the highest risk (class III) devices, especially implantable devices […]
Month: April 2013
Julian Sheather: Francis—the ethical challenge
Medical ethics has positioned itself as a decision making tool, a philosophical spanner if you like in the clinician’s toolbox. For understandable reasons it has concentrated on practical dilemmas: even […]
Readers’ editor: Crazy eggs and the BMJ in a mobile world
Each year the BMJ runs an online reader survey. The survey is mainly multiple choice but there is also a free text question where we ask readers: “What single improvement […]
Krishna Chinthapalli on Atul Gawande—thinker, leader, doctor, writer
In 2009, Obama convened senior politicians in the Oval Office to discuss one magazine article: why were there Medicare costs of $15,000 per person per year in the Texan town […]
David Lock: Spot the legal howlers—picking over the assurances given by Lord Howe to the House of Lords
Healthcare lawyers have a new game—it’s called “spot the errors.” A number of us have been through the speech made by Lord Howe in winding up the debate in the […]
Richard Smith: A French recipe for happiness
Émilie du Châtelet, the French aristocrat, philosopher, lover of Voltaire, and interpreter of Newton, had highly original (and possibly even correct) ideas on the route to happiness. Those who are […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—29 April 2013
JAMA 24 Apr 2013 Vol 309 1691 Last week I welcomed the imminent arrival of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) because it would classify every human […]
Richard Vize on the challenges faced by clinical commissioning groups
The mood among clinical commissioners less than a month into the new system is characterised by a determination to move care out of hospitals, frustration at legal and financial impediments […]
Estrella Lasry: Seasonal malaria chemoprevention—good news in a year marked by malaria emergencies
In 2012, MSF projects in several countries saw an important increase in cases of malaria, and a prolonged peak in areas of seasonal transmission. More than six emergency interventions were […]
Julian Sheather: Is psychiatry a form of torture?
I doubt few areas of medical practice are more ethically charged than the forced treatment of people with mental disorders. Recently a colleague forwarded me some comments made in March […]