New draft guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for public consultation recommends that the threshold for starting treatment to prevent cardiovascular disease should be halved […]
Latest articles
Richard Smith: Should all GPs have 3000 patients?
Perhaps 20, possibly 25 or even 30, years ago I had breakfast (or was it lunch?) with Geoffrey Marsh, a GP from Teesside, and he told me that all GPs […]
James Partridge responds to the government’s review of cosmetic surgery
There was more than a little bit of déja vu about the government’s response to the Keogh review of cosmetic surgery when it finally saw the light of day, early […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—17 February 2014
NEJM 599 Most weeks I quote you the conclusion of some pharma-funded trial which overstates the benefit of an intervention. But in reality clinical trials of any kind can be a form […]
Richard Smith: Nourishing the world
About a billion people end the day hungry, another billion are obese, and food prices are steadily rising. Clearly something is very wrong with the world’s food system, and the […]
Anita Jain: Lessons from history for modern medicine
“Medical knowledge usually relegates history to an incidental and anecdotal role but always outside the boundary of development of pure scientific knowledge.” […]
William Cayley: We have met the enemy
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Pogo) Manica Balasegaram makes a number of excellent points in his recent post, but his conclusion that “the system is broken” […]
Martin Carroll: Thinking of working in the NHS?
In 2013, the National Health Service (NHS) celebrated 65 years of providing comprehensive healthcare, free at the point of delivery to UK citizens. There are a number of factors contributing […]
David Kerr: Data and diabetes – a not-so-quiet revolution
Diabetes teams do not usually perform operations or procedures, and cure is rare indeed, but what they do have in abundance are data. The collection, reporting, and review of data […]
Anna Allan on applying to core training
Alongside thousands of other trainees, over the past months I have been partaking in the core training application rigmarole. And it is exhausting. For example the process of compiling a […]