A colleague is sick. Someone is needed to cover him tomorrow. There are no locums and no volunteers. Who should be selected? Few issues generate more passion and cause more […]
Guest writers
Tom Jefferson: Adapting pharmaceutical regulation to more transparency
On the 8 December the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the EU Commission hosted a workshop to discuss Adaptive Pathways, formerly known as Adaptive Licensing. The 180 physical and 155 […]
Sally Browning: Acts of kindness
Five days after starting chemotherapy for lymphoma, I knew, in the night, that I had an acute abdomen and needed to go to hospital. The two paramedics who arrived were […]
Nick Hopkinson on Steve Biko, the NHS, and the mind of the oppressed
It would have been Steve Biko’s seventieth birthday this weekend. The anti-apartheid leader was beaten to death by the South African Police in a jail cell in 1977. His death […]
Mark Mikhail: The death of bedside teaching
Teaching in medical school has thankfully and quite rightly changed. Gone are the days when a consultant in a three piece suit, bow tie, and braces would float from bed […]
Katherine Sleeman: The price of life
“More life with your kids, more life with your friends, more life spent on earth—but only if you pay” was the message of AA Gill’s posthumous essay published in the […]
Tara Lamont: Seize the day or the decision maker—making research count
Timing can be everything. A policymaker once said to me that a perfect piece of analysis arriving the day after a decision has been taken is useless. Obvious, but worth […]
Mary Higgins: Where dartboards and dominos meet after an adverse event
Occasionally, when talking to women who have experienced an adverse outcome, I come across someone who takes me completely by surprise with their kindness and generosity. These are people who […]
Jonathan A Michaels: Bridging the gap between academics and practitioners
During my career as a clinical academic I have seen considerable changes to the clinical, academic, and financial structures within the NHS associated with the introduction of evidence-based practice and […]
Katherine McKenzie: Supporting human rights, one patient at a time
I saw the first asylum seeker around ten years ago in my clinic. He came from a country with an autocratic president against whom he had peacefully protested. The government […]