At a time when NHS bodies are under more financial pressure than ever before there is one anomaly which is worth highlighting. Personal injury victims can be paid damages on […]
Year: 2014
Richard Lehman’s journal review—3 February 2014
NEJM 30 Jan 2014 Vol 370 There is very little in the print journals this week, and JAMA is taking a week out, so this seems like a good opportunity […]
William Cayley: It’s not just the patient’s story that matters
Each patient’s story matters. It tells us who the patient is, and how he or she came to the present point or predicament. The story gives nuance, meaning, perspective, and […]
Pragati B Hebbar and Vishal Rao: Tobacco or a job?
The department of personnel in Rajasthan, a state in India, has taken a bold step by making it mandatory for candidates who want a government job to commit to not […]
Robyn Evans: A crucial time for global surgery
Mid morning on Saturday 18 January, in a dark, slightly indie London theatre, a crowd of distinguished surgery and anaesthesia colleagues gathered to eat Mexican food and talk safe surgery. […]
Richard Smith: Medical research—still a scandal
Twenty years ago this week the statistician Doug Altman published an editorial in the BMJ arguing that much medical research was of poor quality and misleading. In his editorial entitled, […]
Suchita Shah: Why are pharmacies in Massachusetts selling tobacco?
In the wake of the 50th US Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, published last week, and in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, whose birthday it was this week, […]
Readers’ editor: Is the term “Chinese wall” racist?
At The BMJ we often talk about the “Chinese wall,” a clear demarcation between the advertising sales and editorial teams. This safeguard helps to avoid conflicts of interest, and means […]
Helen Bygrave: HIV viral load in Africa—no longer why but how?
Access to HIV viral load monitoring in resource poor settings has long felt a bit like the search for the Holy Grail—a seemingly hopeless, but essential quest. But at the […]
Simon Nicholas Williams and Kimberly Dienes: Universal mental health checks in schools—some responses to the critics
A recent BMJ article by one of the authors of this post (SW), argued the need for universal mental health checks in schools. This personal view stemmed from a wider […]