Breastfeeding is good for babies and mothers. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has long been a champion, advocating vigorously for policies that support mothers and improve […]
Month: October 2016
William Seligman: What’s going to happen to US health policy after the presidential election?
Whether it’s the razzmatazz, scandal, or fear generated by the forthcoming US presidential election, it’s fair to say that people are talking about it worldwide and watching closely as 8 […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—31 October 2016
Oxygen for moderate COPD This week saw the official launch of the UK Academy of Medical Royal Colleges “Choosing Wisely” campaign, which was so successful that its website crashed. It […]
C.R. Chandrasekar: Raising awareness of sarcomas
Many years ago I saw a young man who helped me to focus on the importance of raising public and professional awareness of sarcomas, a rare cancer. He had a […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Empathy and compassion
In my last two blogs I discussed empathy and suggested that it may take different forms. Here I expand on those ideas and compare sympathy, empathy, and compassion. I take […]
Joanna Lyall: Feeding the 400
The comfort of food is not a concept readily accepted by institutions, be they hospitals, schools, or nursing homes. As well as financial constraints—many NHS trusts in England feed inpatients […]
No waiving goodbye to Medicaid expansion: What does the rejection of Ohio’s Medicaid waiver proposal mean for other states?
Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare), the number of uninsured individuals in the United States decreased from 49 million in 2010 to 29 million in 2015. […]
Shilpa Prabhakar: Should you choose mental health as your specialty?
I have always wanted to be a doctor. Perhaps, like many, I was attracted to medicine because I wanted to help people. After qualifying in 2004, I briefly did a general […]
Bengt Fadeel: Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize, and The Day of the Locusts
Our paper, published last year in The BMJ, on the tendency among scientists in the biomedical field to cite Bob Dylan’s lyrics in their own papers,1 seems to have struck a […]
Laura Burkimsher: The art of medicine
“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” — Voltaire This was the opening sentence of my personal statement for my application to medical […]