Last week, four US tobacco companies finally reached agreement with the US Department of Justice to fund large scale corrective advertising about five areas of tobacco control. Each advertisement will […]
Month: January 2014
Richard Smith: Doctors and the Hollande affair
It’s hard not to be fascinated by Francois Hollande’s alleged (why do we keep bothering with this word?) affair with an actress with stories of two Parisian love nests, bags […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—20 January 2014
NEJM 16 Jan 2014 Vol 370 201 Developing and marketing a new drug is a tricky business, but it can be a very lucrative one. AiCuris is a company I […]
Tessa Richards: The rise and reach of expert patients
In the Victorian era the patients who acquired public profiles tended to be doubly disadvantaged. Think Joseph Merrick. His fame as the “Elephant Man” stemmed from others exploiting his disfiguring […]
Ahmet Ozdemir Aktan: Criminalising doctors in Turkey
Back in June 2013 protests began to protect the trees in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Within a few days this turned into an outcry from millions of protesters all over Turkey […]
Richard Smith: Taboo over the private sector limits health development
In most low and middle income countries the private sector accounts for 60-80% of outpatient care and 40-60% of inpatient care. Yet aid agencies have largely ignored the private sector, […]
Anita Jain: Ensuring no woman dies during childbirth in India
In conversation with my grandmother recently, I travelled nearly 60 years back in time to a village in Rajasthan as she recounted her near death experience during childbirth. Though lately […]
Richard Smith: What is the future for hospices?
As I walked beside Clapham Common towards Trinity Hospice a famous BMJ phrase was ringing in my ears: “Hospice care is deluxe dying for the few looked after by dowager […]
Marc Wittenberg on taking part in a CQC inspection
In September 2013, shortly after starting in post as a national medical director’s clinical fellow at the BMJ and NHS England, I received an email inviting applicants to join “Mike’s […]
Sean Roche: In order for patients to be valued, we must begin by valuing staff
Since the Francis report there has been much discussion about the need to disseminate “compassion” in the NHS. While there has been a great deal of moralistic rhetoric extolling the […]