“I’ve been lobbied. I am a lobbyist. Lobbying is not a dirty word. It’s a fundamental part of the political process. You should be a lobbyist.” This is how David […]
Columnists
Julian Sheather: Medical electives—laying the ghosts of empire?
I was at Brighton Medical School recently, talking ethics to third years, and a lively and engaging bunch they were too. Among the many things we talked about were electives, […]
Richard Smith: Monkeys help explain why poor people are fatter
Within all human hierarchies those lower in the hierarchy have poorer health than those higher up. In high income countries poor people are fatter than rich people, and, although the […]
Muir Gray: Setting standards for systems of care
Read the rest of this series of blogs about designing and planning population based systems of care here. Step 5: Setting standards Having formulated objectives and chosen criteria to measure […]
Richard Smith: Accelerating towards the future of publishing science
One of the conclusions of Ben Goldacre’s important book Bad Pharma is that our current system of publishing science is broken. More and more people are reaching that conclusion, and […]
James Raftery: Breast cancer screening review—would NICE have done it differently?
The publication of a summary of the benefits and harms of breast cancer screening in the Lancet, with the full report to follow, raises the question of whether referring this […]
Desmond O’Neill: The location of Ireland’s new national children’s hospital
One of the hottest topics in Irish medical politics finally came to a head this week with the announcement of the location of the new national childrens’ hospital, amalgamating the […]
Marge Berer and Lisa Hallgarten: Sacrificing the good for the perfect
Post partum haemorrhage (PPH) is one of the leading causes of maternal deaths. According to WHO estimates, in 2010 there were 287,000 maternal deaths, 25% of which were associated with […]
Muir Gray: Choosing criteria for systems of care
Read the rest of this series of blogs about designing and planning population based systems of care here. Step 4: Choosing criteria Choosing criteria is a more time consuming process […]
Paul Glasziou: Should we abandon the term “hypertension?”
Disease labels have an aura of authority and permanence. But definitions can drift considerably over time changing who is and is not classified as “diseased.” For hypertension, Greene [1] has […]