A useful update was provided at a meeting this week sponsored by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and Patients Involved in NICE (the National Institute for Health […]
Columnists
Richard Smith: How important are the “early origins of health?”
How important is what happens to you in fetal and neonatal life in determining whether you develop heart disease later in life? I found myself thinking about that question a […]
Muir Gray:”The most effective screening programme ever”
“The most effective screening programme ever,” this was Richard Doll’s gentle jest when I was director of national screening programmes. Aware of my efforts to ensure that screening did much […]
Martin McShane: A tale of two citizens?
Four years ago I participated in scenario planning. The document that emerged is as relevant today as it was then – perhaps because it was looking “Over the Horizon,” taking […]
David Kerr: The new prohibition
The NHS and technology have had a quixotic sort of relationship recently. A current source of collective angst for the NHS is what to do about social networking? The behemoth of […]
Richard Smith: Beware journals, especially “top” ones
Dave Sackett, the father of evidence based medicine, used to warn people against reading journals. They took up time that could be better spent and gave you fragments of evidence […]
Douglas Noble on reforming the reforms
The pause ended in dramatic fashion last week with the publication of the NHS Future Forum’s recommendations. Most interesting was the orthopaedic surgeon at Guys Hospital who confronted the prime […]
Richard Smith: The NHS debate – missing most of what matters
I’ve stayed out of the NHS debate. These days I spend lots of time in countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, and Guatemala, and viewed from those countries – where health workers and […]
Tiago Villanueva: The dawn of open access books
It is well known that doctors’ professional roles change throughout their career. A junior doctor is expected to be mainly committed to clinical duties, while the head of department may be mainly dedicated […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Can developing country health systems prepare for complex disasters (the “zombie apocalypse”)?
In light of the recent blog by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that focused on household emergency preparedness for the zombie apocalypse and other disasters like […]