Words that sound wonderful can come back to haunt you. As a case in point, I recently responded to Elizabeth Wortley’s eloquent blog “Please refrain from using that kind of […]
Latest articles
Deborah Kirkham: Abortion in America—are church and state really separate?
Never talk about religion, politics, or sex the old adage goes. The continuing debate about abortion covers all three, which may go someway to explaining the fervor with which all […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Contemptuous
As I have previously described, delaying tactics in a conflict are known as Fabian tactics, after Quintus Fabius Maximus, who used them against Hannibal’s Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, […]
Richard Smith: Commissioning needs to be about all public services not just health
Parliament has three times relegislated the commissioner provider split—in 1990, 2002, and 2012, said Stephen Dorrell, secretary of state for health from 1995-97, in a talk to the Imperial College […]
When Breath Becomes Air: A book review by Salil Patel
When Dr Paul Kalanithi (pictured) was 36, and with most of his neurosurgical training complete, his life was finally beginning to take the form he had anticipated. Just as pieces […]
Stephen Maloney: The role of social media in communicating research findings
This blog is part of a series of blogs linked with BMJ Clinical Evidence, a database of systematic overviews of the best available evidence on the effectiveness of commonly used […]
Andrew McDonald Johnston: Ebola resilience in Sierra Leone
On the 14 January 2016 a new case of Ebola virus disease infection was confirmed in Sierra Leone, only hours after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that the Ebola […]
Saffron Cordery: The old slogans are often the best
Sometimes it’s good to revive an old slogan. The one that’s been running round my head recently is that 80s environmental campaign: think global; act local. There isn’t necessarily an instant […]
Soumyadeep Bhaumik’s review of South Asian medical papers—February 2016
We are now officially in a new era of global health—the era of the Sustainable Development Goals. The month of January saw the publication of some papers from South Asia which […]
Aeesha NJ Malik: Improving children’s eye health in Pakistan
1.5 million children in Pakistan are blind. Many from eye diseases which are preventable and treatable. Often children don’t know they have a vision problem because they assume they see […]