NEJM 599 Most weeks I quote you the conclusion of some pharma-funded trial which overstates the benefit of an intervention. But in reality clinical trials of any kind can be a form […]
Month: February 2014
Richard Smith: Nourishing the world
About a billion people end the day hungry, another billion are obese, and food prices are steadily rising. Clearly something is very wrong with the world’s food system, and the […]
Anita Jain: Lessons from history for modern medicine
“Medical knowledge usually relegates history to an incidental and anecdotal role but always outside the boundary of development of pure scientific knowledge.” […]
William Cayley: We have met the enemy
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Pogo) Manica Balasegaram makes a number of excellent points in his recent post, but his conclusion that “the system is broken” […]
Martin Carroll: Thinking of working in the NHS?
In 2013, the National Health Service (NHS) celebrated 65 years of providing comprehensive healthcare, free at the point of delivery to UK citizens. There are a number of factors contributing […]
David Kerr: Data and diabetes – a not-so-quiet revolution
Diabetes teams do not usually perform operations or procedures, and cure is rare indeed, but what they do have in abundance are data. The collection, reporting, and review of data […]
Anna Allan on applying to core training
Alongside thousands of other trainees, over the past months I have been partaking in the core training application rigmarole. And it is exhausting. For example the process of compiling a […]
Richard Smith: Teaching medical students online consultation with patients
A first year medical student of today may well still be practising in 2070. We can’t know how medicine will look then, but we can see some clear trends. The […]
Manica Balasegaram: Drugs for the poor, drugs for the rich—why the current research and development model doesn’t deliver
The past month has seen the reputation of “Big Pharma” dented more than usual. The CEO of German pharmaceutical company Bayer, Marijn Dekkers, was reported as saying that the company […]
Martin Caldwell: My concerns about care.data
Over 212,000 people have signed a SumOfUs.org petition calling on the government and NHS England to think again about selling access to our personal medical information to private companies. Our […]