On 20 June the Department of Health announced that: “Expert body given responsibility to look at the benefits medicines bring to wider society.” The terms of reference are not on […]
Month: June 2013
Helen Macdonald: Do I practise global health?
I was strolling around the poster hall at the WONCA conference in Prague yesterday, when the question occurred to me. I fell into conversation with the presenters of two linked […]
David Lock: Suicide, refusing treatment, and consent in the dying process
This is an anonymised story about how a doctor’s misunderstanding of the law around managing the death of a patient with capacity appears to have caused unnecessary suffering. It is […]
Birte Twisselmann on the HighWire Spring Publisher’s conference—massive, open, online, and individualised
Every three years or so I am lucky enough to attend our webhost HighWire’s spring publisher’s meeting at Stanford University in sunny California. This year was no exception—the meeting was […]
Tiago Villanueva: Why does Brazil want to recruit doctors from Spain and Portugal?
I recently met up with a Portuguese friend who works as a researcher and doctor in New York. She has an immense passion for Brazil and told me she would […]
Readers’ editor: International research
The BMJ wants its research papers to help doctors make better decisions, which is why they are open access and free to view. But to deliver on the pledge our […]
Trish Groves: What does Tamiflu do, and how will we know?
Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam, virologist and researcher from the University of Nottingham, told a group of triallists and virologists last week “we must remember why we’re here—because of the controversies. The clinical […]
Trish Groves: Data sharing—making it real
The evidence base for current treatments has been built largely on aggregated results published in journal articles—articles that report trials initiated and sponsored by industry in order to get marketing […]
Jaana Ahlblad and Päivi Hietanen: Finnish baby boxes—could this joy be reproduced?
How can a cardboard box be a symbol of equality and express the importance of children? Easily, if it’s filled with soft cotton clothes for newborns and […]
Richard Smith: The BMA and homosexuality
I was once responsible for Family Doctor Publications, which were a series of booklets owned by the BMA, had titles like You and Your Bowels, and sold in huge numbers […]