I often groan at the media’s handling of health issues. Often alarmist, it simply succeeds in raising concern levels enough to translate into unnecessary demands on my already overbooked clinical […]
Guest writers
Jonny Martell: Surviving burnout
Nothing much sprung to mind. A friend had just asked me an odd question, paraphrasing the mystical scholar Andrew Harvey, “what breaks your heart the most?” Was this an early […]
Veena Rao: Food security by decree
I wrote a BMJ article about the Food Security Bill in India after it was introduced in parliament in December 2011. On 5 July 2013 the National Food Security Act 2013, […]
Regina Keith: How to prevent 804,000 children under 5 dying
As congratulations come in from around the world to the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge on the safe delivery of their son, all parents would share the hope that […]
Alejandro Madrazo Lajous: Little Uruguay’s big experiment
All eyes are on the tiny South American nation of Uruguay this week following its historic approval for the world’s first nationally controlled marijuana market. While the plan still […]
Aser Garcia Rada: Ideological limits to public assisted reproduction in Spain
Since the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy´s People´s Party (PP) took office with an absolute majority on November 2011, healthcare has repeatedly been the setting for implementing ideological decisions that often […]
Chris Naylor: Why we cannot afford to be pessimistic about CCGs
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have a lot stacked against them. They have taken control of the majority of the NHS budget at a time when financial pressures are mounting and […]
Nassim Parvizi on being a junior doctor on the Keogh Review
As junior doctors, we all see and hear things that work well or that could work better as we rotate between different departments across a number of hospital trusts. So […]
Aser Garcia Rada: Exporting the Spanish and European organ donation system
Most Europeans support organ donation, but there is still a need for more organ donors, according to several experts at a recent international meeting on donation and transplantation, organized in […]
Jane Parry: Why are we so resistant to calling sugar the enemy?
Sparing developing countries the fate of obesity associated diseases that plague the developed world is currently one of the most pressing global public health issues. Before we export wholesale the […]