Surgery has been called the “neglected stepchild” of global health. Of the surgical research that is done, virtually none of it is relevant to patients and surgeons in resource limited […]
Latest articles
Avril Danczak: When does risk factor management lead to harm?
“The operation was a success but the patient died.” This old jibe, usually aimed at surgeons taking a narrow technical view of the outcome, seems out of date now. There […]
Richard Smith: Working to make cholera a disease of the past
Until last year the Cholera Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, could have a thousand admissions a day before and after the monsoon. On a calm day now it still has hundreds. […]
The consequences of repealing and replacing Obamacare: A troublesome paradox
To the approval of millions of Americans, President-elect Donald J Trump campaigned on directing the US Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare). As the dust settles […]
Dot Sang: This is what success in the Calais camp looks like
The Calais Jungle is now all but rubble and mud. More than 10,000 refugees who inhabited the camp are dispersed across France. Many of them will be embarking on their […]
Thushara Matthias: Caring for older patients
I’m a postgraduate trainee from a developing country and have completed my local training in internal and general medicine to be a consultant physician. The rest of my training involves […]
Aeesha NJ Malik: Integrating child health in Tanzania—where is the vision?
I first set foot in Tanzania 20 years ago as a medical student. Rather ambitiously at the time, I came with the intention of conducting an evaluation in Tanzania and […]
Richard Smith: Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world, and why are Facebook and Harry Potter so popular?
When you enter the room in the Louvre that contains the Mona Lisa you find people crowded around the bullet-proof case that contains the Mona Lisa and largely ignoring the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—21 November 2016
NEJM 17 Nov 2016 Vol 375 Diabetes kills in Mexico City “Overall, between 35 and 74 years of age, the excess risk of death associated with diabetes accounted for approximately […]
Juliet Cohen: Proving torture–home office mistreatment of expert medical evidence
The encounter that changed my medical career was in 1990, with an interpreter working in a Red Cross clinic overseas. We had become friends over the weeks that I worked […]