As the UK reaches the end of the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, it is worth reflecting on how the disease has fundamentally altered the way we fund medical […]
Month: July 2020
Nisreen A Alwan: What exactly is mild covid-19?
We still know very little about covid-19, but we do know that we cannot fight what we do not measure […]
Nigel Edwards: Plans to shake-up the NHS have a central flaw
Those of us who have been involved in the NHS for a long time will have felt a sinking feeling when they read recently that Boris Johnson, the UK prime […]
Changing the narrative: young people are key to dealing with the covid-19 pandemic
The outbreak of covid-19 came in a time of a global health workforce crisis. The WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030, primarily in low […]
Amar Shah: Belief in QI is growing, but it needs proper investment
I first learnt about quality improvement (QI), when I took a year out of training to join the chief medical officer’s clinical advisor programme at the National Patient Safety Agency. […]
Daniel Sokol: A wake-up call for clinical ethics committees
A High Court judge has criticised Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Clinical Ethics Committee (“CEC”) for failing to involve the parents of a nine year-old child in their decision making process. […]
Georgia Gray: Disability and medicine—a case for inclusivity
I had been asked by the registrar I was shadowing to examine a patient’s abdomen. Midway through palpating, the patient stopped me, mildly outraged and pointed to my hand. She […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Power
Last week I outlined some basic pharmacokinetic principles that can inform the likelihood that a newly proposed treatment may be effective, given only in vitro evidence. I showed that the […]
Rachel Bannister on struggling with addiction: “You just need a hand to hold to see you through”
The enduring stigma around addiction has long been a problem in our society. But Rachel Bannister writes of her disappointment that this is present even within healthcare services […]
Trusting evidence over anecdote: Clinical decision making in the era of covid-19
With every new piece of “evidence” on covid-19, implementation has proven harder in practice than in theory, say Tara Vijayan, Nida Qadir, and Tisha Wang […]