Developing interventions that work to, say, reduce malaria, combat obesity, or prevent cardiovascular disease is hard, but scaling them up to benefit whole populations is harder. Yet the interventions must […]
Columnists
Richard Smith on Matlab, Bangladesh
The cholera hospital in Matlab, Bangladesh, has patients in the corridors and every nook and cranny, but as we walk through the mood is calm. Most beds have two people, […]
Julian Sheather: Whose potbelly is it anyway?
I have just been to a lecture – whose title I’ve stolen for this blog – given by Inez de Beaufort, Professor of Healthcare Ethics at the Erasmus Medical Centre […]
Richard Smith: the unrecognised epidemic
About 200 million adults a year undergo major surgery that is not cardiac surgery, and about 5 million of those people suffer a major vascular complication. That, said P J […]
Richard Smith: A day in village India
“The village is the real India,” said an Indian friend, echoing Gandhi and the continuing belief of many Indian intellectuals. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den […]
Siddhartha Yadav: Sexual and reproductive health of adolescents in South Asia
Last week I participated in the “Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Workshop” organised by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) in Bangalore, India. We had gathered there to […]
Richard Smith: Anna’s legacy
“Anna [Donald] has left a remarkable legacy to other patients like myself with advanced disease,” says Helen Owens, a patient with cancer, on the website Anna’s Adventure. Anna Donald, as […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Meeting the Marlboro man in Jakarta
Last week my three boys and I were visiting friends on our first trip to Indonesia. Jakarta is enchanting…shiny, modern, glossy, and brimming with cultural charm: twisty roads, unique architecture, […]
Liz Wager: Should editors punish misbehaving authors?
I’ve been wondering about the role of journals in punishing miscreant authors. A senior publisher told me he was uneasy about COPE’s retraction guidelines because although they suggest that redundant […]
Douglas Noble: Easter and transplantation
Sally Slater last week celebrated the tenth anniversary of her life-saving heart transplant. Sally was only six when she had the operation and was pictured with Billie Piper after the […]