Corruption is “the abuse of power or position to acquire a personal benefit.” For individual doctors corrupt behaviour would include ordering unnecessary tests, prescribing irrelevant medication, or performing unwarranted operations […]
Patient and public perspectives
Nicki Haywood: A carer’s perspective on how doctors can help patients with MND
When Mum was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND); it was to change my Mum’s life, it was to change our families’ lives. At the start we were thrown into […]
David Gilbert: Patient as expert
During my psychiatric years, I could only dream of being an equal to health professionals. These days therefore, to be valued as an “expert” is seductive. But we have to […]
Tessa Richards: Fewer tablets, more self management support
It’s easy to lose confidence and withdraw from life when you become ill and lose your job. “Anne” struggled for 20 years with multiple long term conditions and a drug […]
Paul Wicks: Making sure conferences are “Patients Included”
Picture this: you’re a medical professional and are about to open the doors to a conference you’ve spent years pulling together. You’ve booked your venue, have your sponsors lined up, […]
Jon Stamford: Patients must help design clinical trials
It is a truth universally acknowledged that clinical trials are the bedrock upon which all medical progress is based. Without successful trials new medicines are not introduced, new treatments are […]
Tessa Richards: Is your conference “Patients Included?”
The conference circuit is buzzing. If you are not physically caught up in the whirl there are plenty of colourful twitter feeds to follow—last week’s #EvidenceLive for example. Next week […]
The economic value of patients in the improvement of healthcare
Despite a growing awareness of patients’ crucial part in contributing to healthcare, the ways by which this can be achieved are still limited. For patients’ innovative power to be efficiently […]
Zackary Berger and Dave deBronkart: “Precision medicine” needs patient partnership
US President Obama recently presented the outlines of a US$215 million plan for “precision medicine” through support of research funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute. […]
Carolyn Thomas: Yet another cardiac risk calculator?
To see for myself how reliable the new NHS heart disease risk calculator is, I completed all required fields exactly as I would have answered seven years ago. That was […]