The first Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) workshop in Japan took place, in April 2013, at Kyoto University, stimulating debate about how the Japanese research and practice community […]
Guest writers
Tony Waterston: Why can’t we stop nuclear weapons?
Doctors first started to speak out about the health impact of nuclear weapons way back in 1980; the BMA published The Medical Effects of Nuclear weapons in 1983 and it was […]
Nigel Edwards: Can we keep up with the demand for urgent and emergency care?
The urgent and emergency care system is under severe pressure. Performance on a number of important indicators, including the four hour wait and ambulance handover targets, is heading in the […]
Chris Ham: Medical leadership must move from the margins to the mainstream
A new report from the health services management centre at the University of Birmingham and The King’s Fund, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, provides a comprehensive and […]
Mary Madden: Should we assume medical devices work until proven otherwise?
Low standards of evidence for medical device regulation in Europe have led to clinical concerns about the potential dangers posed by the highest risk (class III) devices, especially implantable devices […]
Damien Brown: Working for MSF in South Sudan
My second day in South Sudan, the start of a nine month posting with MSF in this war torn, dustbowl of a town called Nasir, and I’m standing here in […]
Suchita Shah: First responders—a note from Boston
It is 11.59 pm and there is an eerie silence. All afternoon, sirens were wailing relentlessly outside my window, pushing through Red Sox traffic to reach Boylston Street ten minutes […]
Richard Smith: Memories of Thatcher
My early years at the BMJ were very bound up with Margaret Thatcher. I started as an assistant editor a month before she became prime minister in 1979 and was […]
Richard Smith: Is email work?
“Email is not work. It’s a distraction.” So said a fierce, bearded lecturer at a talk I attended recently. Is he right? I have every reason to think him wrong […]
David Lock: “Privatisation regulations” mean big change
It is not every day that the Department of Health produces a formal response to two of my dry (and I accept potentially fairly boring) legal opinions. 23 March was a red […]