Have some fun with Google. Type in “British Medical Association says yes.” It will give you about 650,000 results. Typing in “British Medical Association says no” gives you nearly 12 […]
Columnists
Douglas Noble on patient safety curricula
WHO recently released a medical school curriculum in patient safety. To date the number of downloads is in the 1000s. The curriculum includes teaching resources on systems thinking in healthcare, […]
Richard Smith: Move money from the NHS to social care
When governments spend money on “health” they get lots of sickness but very little health. Increasing expenditure on healthcare—now 17% of GDP in the United States and 9% of GDP […]
Martin McShane: Pathways don’t fit
The buzz word of late has been “pathways.” I guess that has been brought about by Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg’s article in the Harvard Business Review and their book […]
Douglas Noble on checklists
I remember as a medical student when the Rockall score for GI bleeding came into common practice. As with all checklists and tick box style scoring systems, well thumbed photocopies […]
Richard Smith: What to say to a food company
What should you say to a major food company if asked to speak to its senior managers? A friend of mine, a cardiovascular epidemiologist, received such an invitation and emailed […]
Julian Sheather on placebos
Earlier this week, the fairly formidable Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report on homeopathy. For anyone who likes a bit of evidence with their medicine, the results were […]
Siddhartha Yadav: Suicide due to healthcare costs
The Oli family had already borrowed a hundred thousand Nepalese rupees (around 800 Pounds) for the treatment of their daughter with epilepsy. They needed more to continue the treatment. Unable […]
Martin McShane: Specialised
Commissioning of specialised services is done across the region. I had to drive to another county for the meeting where we were going to decide what to invest in. These […]
Richard Smith: We don’t know how best to communicate the benefits and harms of drugs
Every day hundreds of thousands of doctors and patients around the world discuss the benefits and risks of drugs. You might think therefore that we know how to communicate the […]