The Department of Health together with the NHS Supply Chain are trying to push through Generic Specifications (known as the Carter Report) where the specification criteria can be applied so […]
Month: January 2016
John Hughes: Why dying should be everyone’s business
Like all non-specialist, palliative care healthcare professionals, doctors have varying degrees of willingness to broach difficult conversations with patients and families, particularly if it is a conversation that is about […]
Billy Boland: The trouble with resolutions…
At this most reflective time of year, I found myself in a conversation last week about New Year’s resolutions. Thinking about my most and least successful attempts it occurred to […]
Rosamund Snow: A year of patients’ thoughts
In January 2015 we launched What Your Patient Is Thinking (#WYPIT), a series entirely written and edited by patients and carers. Not many patients get a chance to express their […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Rocks, horns, devils, and hard places
A dilemma is not just an irritating problem, like trying to decide whether to go to Costa or Starbucks, which anyway gives the option of not having coffee at all. […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—18 January 2016
NEJM 14 Jan 2016 Vol 374 SDM: no looking back 104 There are two interesting Perspective pieces in this week’s NEJM, both about individualizing care. The first is about shared […]
Chris Baker: Child obesity in India? Tell me something I don’t know!
In recent years an abundance of observational studies have drawn attention to the rising prevalence of child overweight and obesity in India. A recent meta-analysis of studies in South Asia, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Striking tactics
Jeremy Cunctator’s Fabian tactics in his dealings with the British Medical Association over the junior hospital doctors’ contract have precipitated the first doctors’ strike for 40 years. After declining to […]
Richard Smith: Gawping at death
Around 4000 people a day visit El Museo De Las Momias (The Mummy Museum) in Guanjuato, making it one of the most popular tourist sites in Mexico. Some queue for […]
Soumyadeep Bhaumik’s review of South Asian medical papers—January 2016
“Study the past if you would define the future,” said the great Chinese philosopher Confucius, and what better way to start the year than to look back at what happened […]