Shakespeare’s question about being springs to mind when as doctors we are faced with change. Do we “take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?” That […]
Latest articles
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—How I got the Cuba HIV story wrong
I recently reported on the World Health Organization’s announcement that Cuba was the first country in the world to halt mother-to-child transmission of HIV, an accomplishment praised by WHO’s director-general, […]
Martin Roland: Who should have PSA testing for prostate cancer?
Doctors and patients are confused by PSA testing. In January 2016, the UK National Screening Committee recommendation concluded that “Evidence shows a benefit of prostate screening to reduce prostate cancer […]
Stuart Parris and Sonja Marjanovic: How to galvanise the NHS to adopt innovation
The NHS has a strong history of pioneering health innovations, but has traditionally been better at developing them than adopting them. To address these challenges, Sir Hugh Taylor, former permanent secretary at […]
Georg Röggla: Choosing wisely in Germany
I attended the annual convention of the German Society of Internal Medicine DGIM (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Innere Medizin) in Mannheim this week. The main focus of this congress is transferring […]
Meena Putturaj: The art of data collection in health systems research
Data collection is a crucial aspect of any research project. Depending on the nature and scope of the research question, collecting quality data requires considerable investment of time and resources. […]
Robert A Watson: Challenges and opportunities for emergency general surgery
Emergency general surgery (EGS) in England is facing a number of challenges, including workforce, training, and operational issues. Together these have led to wide national variation in outcomes. For example, […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—11 April 2016
NEJM 7 April 2016 Vol 374 Prebirth steroids and baby lungs 1311 Most of you will be familiar with the logo of the Cochrane Collaboration, consisting of a blue circle […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Mechanisms
Invited last week to the MuST9 philosophy conference—Evidence, Inference, and Risk, in the Center for Mathematical Philosophy in Munich’s Ludwig Maximilians Universität, the ninth in a series held in turn […]
Xiaoning Zhang: The two child policy in China
For the past thirty seven years the Chinese government has carried out a strict one child policy. In 2015 the policy was phased out, and a two child policy was […]