World Malaria Day 2016 Since the early 2000s the world has seen considerable success in the fight against malaria, with a significant decrease in overall numbers of cases and deaths. […]
Month: April 2016
Steve Ruffenach: Footprints old and new
A recent discovery of ancient footprints on the beach in Happisburgh, UK has set the archeological world aflutter. Scientists working at the scene have discovered pre-historic footprints left by our […]
Anne Gulland: Who wants to live forever?
Would you like to live to be 10,000? Or how about a more reasonable sounding 120? These were questions posed at an event organised by Intelligence Squared under the heading: […]
Natalie Blencowe and Jane Blazeby: Beyond Buxton—establishing when the time’s right for a surgical trial
In 1987 Martin Buxton observed that “it’s always too early [to evaluate] until suddenly, unfortunately, it’s too late.” This is particularly true in surgery. In most countries, there is rapid […]
Claire McDaniel and Daniel Marchalik: Haruki Murakami’s The Colorless Tsuluru Tazaki and the Complexity of Grief
The Doctors’ Book Club Haruki Murakami’s The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Invoking the ubiquity of sadness, Emily Dickinson writes: “I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, […]
Richard Smith: What are medical journals for and how well do they fulfil those functions?
Last week I gave a talk to the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals entitled “Medical journals: time for something different.” My core argument was that “Medical journals have played […]
Chris Ham: Statesmanship among medical leaders could help resolve the junior doctors’ dispute
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the standoff between the government and junior doctors, failure to reach agreement on a new contract is bad for patients and for staff. The […]
Paul Hodgkin: The dogs that don’t bark are the most difficult to hear
For at least the last 70 years patients have been regularly gathered in crowded outpatient clinics and left to sit in silence. Decade after decade, country after country, health systems […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—18 April 2016
NEJM 14 April 2016 Vol 374 Fixing spinal stenosis 1413 Magnetic resonance imaging was like magic when it first appeared. Suddenly structures in the back that could only be guessed […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Mechanisms and evidence
To recap: my definition of a pharmacological mechanism, slightly expanded from before, is “one or more entities and activities organised spatially and temporally to interact in such a way as […]