The commonest undergraduate degree of students entering the medical school at University of California Irvine is philosophy. The medical school, traditionally the richest and most arrogant of university departments, has […]
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Are safety measures really the answer to spiralling clinical negligence costs?
Aviation, rail, and oil and gas industries pride themselves, for good reason, on their safety records and associated culture. And a logical extension of the success of those industries is […]
Soumyadeep Bhaumik’s review of South Asian medical papers—April 2016
Despite the enormous diversity that South Asia encompasses, it has its fair share of common problems in which there is a need for greater co-operation and learning. A key issue […]
Claudia Pagliari et al: Smartening-up NHS workforce management with IT
Media revelations of dramatic unexpected shortages in NHS nursing capacity, excessive dependence on overseas recruitment and costly agency staff (often NHS workers doing private shifts) are contributing to the public perception […]
David Oliver: An ideal minister?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about MPs doubling as ministers of state politically responsible for key public services. What are the characteristics of a good or bad one? I’ll […]
Fionnuala Finnerty: Lessons must be learned from the Calais “jungle” camp
Protection against sexual and gender based violence is imperative in the current refugee crisis Last autumn, I began to volunteer in the Calais “jungle” camp with the Hummingbird medical project […]
William Cayley: Will mid-level practitioners replace primary care physicians?
I recently asked whether, in light of the relative drop in the number of trainees entering family medicine in the US compared to other specialties, we can continue to find […]
Junior doctors’ strike 6 – 8 April 2016: Live blog
The latest round of strike action from junior doctors in England is taking place this week. In a similar vein to the action taken last month, junior doctors will be offering […]
Peter Lees: “The doctors’ mess is dead, long live the doctors’ mess”
I regret not fighting harder for the maintenance of the doctors’ mess. Sure we fought tooth and nail in the late seventies and early eighties when we perceived that the […]
Richard Smith: Coaching—an essential skill in modern health practice
If you have meningitis how well you do depends on the medical team, whereas if you have diabetes it depends mainly on you, the patient. These days most of healthcare […]