At COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) we regularly receive cases of duplicate publication and undisclosed conflicts of interest. I was therefore intrigued to come across an accusation of publication […]
Columnists
Julian Sheather: Selling sickness to the worried well
I have an old friend with a long and complicated relationship with food. Several years ago she answered an ad in a woman’s magazine. She filled out a questionnaire, sent […]
Richard Smith: Why is the health service so hopeless with domestic violence?
I’ve always thought that death, although universal, was the great taboo for health services, but now I’ve discovered something that seems to cause even greater difficulty for clinicians – domestic […]
Martin McShane: Tick
In 2008 the National Patient Safety Agency set a deadline for acute trusts to implement the safer surgery checklist. By? Well, now actually. If you don’t know what the checklist […]
Richard Smith: Reducing chronic disease in Pakistan
Pakistan, like most developing countries, is experiencing rapidly rising rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and it has developed a draft national plan for countering […]
Richard Smith: The power of women in Pakistan
I’ve been in Pakistan teaching around 30 young women on the day that the Taliban has bombed a girls’ school in north west Pakistan killing three girls and injuring another […]
Julian Sheather: In praise of minor ailments
I have just been ill. Not very ill. Not ‘under the doctor’. Just a lingering cold, a touch of manflu. In the end I took a day off. I woke […]
Liz Wager on stem cell scientists’ criticisms of peer review
Stem cell researchers from some major international institutions have written an open letter to journal editors complaining that they have received unreasonable and obstructive reviews (Euro Stem Cell) […]
Richard Smith asks: Can we create a global network of mentors?
I’m on a plane flying home from Nigeria, where I’ve been participating in a workshop on writing and publishing in journals, reading scientific papers, and encouraging evidence based practice. I […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: To Haiti, with solidarity from Bangladesh
Natural disasters, a history of corruption, high population density, and extreme poverty. Am I talking about Haiti or Bangladesh? When the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port au Prince and brought devastation, the usual […]