it Nuffield Summit 2017 - Reducing Demand By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 13:47:20 +0000 As the NHS strains under pressure from rising patient activity, an ageing population, and financial constraints, The BMJ hosted a discussion on how clinicians should be helping to manage demand at last week’s Nuffield Trust health policy summit. Taking part are: - Eileen Burns, president of the British Geriatrics Society - Andrew Fernando, GP... Full Article
it High integrity child mental healthcare By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 06 Apr 2017 14:54:29 +0000 Around 1 in 10 children and young people worldwide have mental health difficulties that substantially affect their lives. Child mental health services often concentrate on risk reduction, at the expense of the wider aspects of a child's wellbeing. As part of the high integrity healthcare series, this podcast focuses on novel ways of providing... Full Article
it Fighting inequality, corruption, and conflict - how to improve South Asia's health By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 15:29:46 +0000 The BMJ has published a series of articles, taking an in-depth look at health in South Asia. In this collection, authors from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan collaborate to identify evidence-based solutions to shape health policy and interventions, and drive innovations and research in the region. In this podcast,... Full Article
it Helping patients with complex grief By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 18 May 2017 16:44:07 +0000 Each individual’s grief process is unique, when confronted with the death of a loved one, most people experience transient rather than persistent distress - however 10% of bereaved individuals, with an increased risk following the death of a partner or child and loss to unnatural or violent circumstances, experience prolonged grief disorder. In... Full Article
it The Evidence Manifesto - it's time to fix the E in EBM By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 23 Jun 2017 17:06:38 +0000 "Too many research studies are poorly designed or executed. Too much of the resulting research evidence is withheld or disseminated piecemeal. As the volume of clinical research activity has grown the quality of evidence has often worsened, which has compromised the ability of all health professionals to provide affordable, effective, high value... Full Article
it James Kinross and Chris Hankin WannCry about NHS IT By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:13:20 +0000 Earlier this year, the WannaCry ransomeware attack took control of computers in 40 NHS trusts, blocking access to the data held on them. This wasn’t the first time that NHS computers had been infected by malware, but it brought the danger of cyber attack into the consciousness of doctors and patients. In this podcast we hear from two people who... Full Article
it What's going on with life expectancy? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:35:10 +0000 The increase in life expectancy in England has almost “ground to a halt” since 2010 and austerity measures are likely to be a significant contributor. In this podcast Michael Marmot, director at University College London’s Institute of Health Equity, joins us to discuss what might be causing that drop off, and why a decrease in early life chances... Full Article
it "For the first time in 15 years the quitting rate has gone up" - ecigarettes smoking cessation By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 27 Jul 2017 10:54:03 +0000 It’s been 10 years since electronic cigarettes hit the shelves in a big way - and since there controversy has reigned about their health effects - are they less unhealthy than smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, and will they increase nicotine dependence? Its to that last point that new research, published on BMJ.com is looking into -... Full Article
it Mike Richards has "never been politically interfered with" By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jul 2017 13:43:03 +0000 Mike Richards is well known in the UK - former Cancer Tzar, he now heads up the Care Quality Commission - regulator of all health and social care services, and therefore the body responsible for inspecting hospitals and GP practices. In this interview, BMJ’s head of news and views, Rebecca Coombes went to the CQC’s headquarters in London, and... Full Article
it Preventing Overdiagnosis 2017 - Citizen juries By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Sat, 19 Aug 2017 19:27:30 +0000 This week we’re at the over diagnosis conference in Quebec Canada, Preventing overdiangosis is a forum to discuss the harms associated with using uncertain methods to look for disease in apparently healthy people - and is part of the BMJ’s too much medicine campaign. One of the ways in which the public’s attitudes and wishes around health is... Full Article
it The World Bank - why it matters for global health By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 01 Sep 2017 08:59:54 +0000 The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds. A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of... Full Article
it The World Bank - the Global Financing Facility By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 01 Sep 2017 09:05:03 +0000 The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds. A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of... Full Article
it Nigel Crisp - The NHS isn't just a cost to society, it's a benefit By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 08 Sep 2017 17:18:17 +0000 If you google "The NHS" you'll see screaming headlines from the Daily Mail about cost and waste - debate in parliament is about how much of our GDP we should be spending - and each year, hospital trusts go cap in hand to ask for more funding. Against this backdrop, a new analysis, and a first in a series, published on bmj.com, looks at what it... Full Article
it HIV in pregnancy - "without the big picture, people aren't going to be able to take the medication" By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 17:11:27 +0000 A new Rapid Recommendation from The BMJ suggests that for pregnant women, they may wish to avoid certain antiviral treatments for HIV. This recommendation differs from the WHO's, and to discuss why that is, and what makes that difference important, we're joined by Reed Siemieniuk, a physician and methodologist from McMaster University, and Alice... Full Article
it The problems with peer review By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:10:31 +0000 One of the hurdles that anyone who submits research or analysis to The BMJ has to deal with is peer review. The problems of the process, and some of the potential solutions, was a big part of the Peer Review Congress which took place last week. In this interview, Sophie Cook, The BMJ's UK research editor, talks to Lisa Bero, who’s a professor... Full Article
it Diabetes remission - "treating blood glucose, when the disease process is to do with body fat" By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 22 Sep 2017 15:25:47 +0000 In the UK - type 2 diabetes now affects between 5-10% of the population - and accounts for around 10% of our total NHS budget. For the individuals affected, treatments are effective at helping control glucose levels - however, the sequela associated with the disease - vascular problems, and a life expectancy that’s 6 years shorter - are still an... Full Article
it Money for editors By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 27 Oct 2017 16:45:53 +0000 As journal editors, we’re aware of the fact that we have a role to play in scientific discourse - that’s why The BMJ has been so keen to talk about the way in which scientific knowledge is constructed, through our Evidence Manifesto. We also know that money has influence in the scientific literature - which is why we have a zero tolerance policy... Full Article
it Smoking one a day can't hurt, can it? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 14:59:12 +0000 We know that smoking 20 cigarettes a day increases your risk of CHD and stroke - but what happens if you cut down to 1, do you have 1/20th of that risk? Allan Hackshaw, professor of epidemiology at UCL joins us to discuss a new systematic review and meta analysis published on bmj.com, examining the risk of smoking just one or two cigarettes a... Full Article
it How does it feel, to help your patient die? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 08 Feb 2018 11:55:00 +0000 Sabine Netters is an oncologist in The Netherlands - where assisted dying is legal. There doctors actually administer the drugs to help their patients die (unlike proposed legislation in the UK). In this moving interview, Sabine explains what was going through her head, the first time she helped her patient die - and how in the subsequent years,... Full Article
it Katherine Cowan - Reaching A Priority By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 15:59:43 +0000 Its now widely agreed that one of the key ways of reducing the current high level of "waste " in biomedical research is to focus it more squarely on addressing the questions that matter to patients - and the people and medical staff that care for them. In this interview, Tessa Richards - the BMJ's patient partnership editor, talks to... Full Article
it New antivirals for Hepatitis C - what does the evidence prove? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Sat, 12 May 2018 11:44:15 +0000 There’s been a lot of attention given to the new antirviral drugs which target Hepatitis C - partly because of the burden of infection of the disease, and the lack of a treatment that can be made easily accessible to around the world, and partly because of the incredible cost of a course of treatment. But a new article on BMJ talks about the... Full Article
it Ashish Jha tries to see the world as it is. By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 08 Jun 2018 17:02:48 +0000 There’s a lot going on in the world at the moment - Ebola’s back, Puerto Rico is without power and the official estimations of death following the hurricane are being challenged. The WHO’s just met to decide what to do about it all, as well as sorting out universal healthcare, access to medicines, eradicating polio, etc etc. To make sense of that... Full Article
it Evidence in a humanitarian emergency By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:52:03 +0000 At evidence live this year, one of the sessions was about the work of Evidence Aid - and their attempt to bring high quality evidence to the frontline of a humanitarian crisis. In that situation, it’s very difficult to know what will work - a conflict, or even immediately post-conflict situation is characterised by chaos - and merely doing... Full Article
it 10 Rita Redberg By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 05:48:43 +0000 This week influential Editor-in-Chief of JAMA Internal Medicine Dr Rita Redberg joins Ray for a wide ranging conversation on all things health. A Professor at the University of California San Francisco and high profile contributor to The Washington Post and New York Times, Rita is also a practising cardiologist who loves to see patients. She says... Full Article
it Nutritional science - Is quality more important than quantity? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 07 Sep 2018 17:39:13 +0000 We at The BMJ care about food, and if our listener stats are to be believed, so do you. In this podcast we’re looking at quality as an important driver of a good diet. At our recent food conference - Food For Thought - hosted in Zurich by Swiss Re we brought researchers in many fields of nutritional science together. We asked people with... Full Article
it How often do hospital doctors change long term medication during an inpatient stay? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 18:00:24 +0000 More than ½ of patients leave hospital with changes to four or more of their long-term medications - but how appropriate are those changes? New research published on bmj.com looks at antihypertensive medication prescription changes to try and model that - and found that more than half of intensifications occurred in patients with previously well... Full Article
it The counter intuitive effect of open label placebo By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Sat, 06 Oct 2018 10:42:16 +0000 Ted Kaptchuk, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical school - and leading placebo researcher, has just published an analysis on bmj.com describing the effect of open label placebo - placebos that patient's know are placebos, but still seem to have some clinical effect. Ted joins us to speculate about what's going on in the body, what this means... Full Article
it What's it like to live with a vaginal mesh? By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 16:52:37 +0000 What can we learn from the shameful story of vaginal mesh? That thousands of women have been irreversibly harmed; that implants were approved on the flimsiest of evidence; that surgeons weren’t adequately trained and patients weren’t properly informed; that the dash for mesh, fuelled by its manufacturers, stopped the development of alternatives;... Full Article
it Talk evidence - Vitamin D, Oxygen and ethics By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 16 Nov 2018 11:30:56 +0000 Welcome to this, trial run, of a new kind of BMJ podcast - here we’re going to be focusing on all things EBM. Duncan Jarvies, Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan - and occasional guests- will be back every month to discuss what's been happening in the world of evidence. We'll bring you our Verdict on what you should start or stop doing, geek out... Full Article
it How Coca-Cola shaped obesity science and policy in China By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Wed, 09 Jan 2019 17:25:25 +0000 Susan Greenhalg is a research professor of chinese society in Harvard’s department of anthropology - not a natural fit for a medical journal you may think, but recently she has been looking at the influence of Coca Cola on obesity policy in China. She has written up her investigation in an article published on bmj.com this week, and joins us in... Full Article
it Chronic Rhinosinusitis By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 13:58:35 +0000 Patients who experience chronic rhinosinusitis may way for a considerable period of time before presenting, because they believe the condition to be trivial. In this podcast, Alam Hannan, ENT Consultant at the Royal Throat Nose and Ear Hospital in London, explains why that belief is not founded, and describes which treatments can be effective at... Full Article
it Talk Evidence - Radiation, fertility, and pneumonia By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 09:54:48 +0000 Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan are back again talking about what's happened in the world of evidence this month. They start by talking about how difficult a task it is to find evidence that's definitely practice changing, what GPs can learn from Malawian children with nonsevere fast-breathing pneumonia, how radiation dosage varies... Full Article
it An acutely disturbed person in the community By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:46:42 +0000 It can be difficult to know what to do when a person in severe psychological distress presents to a general practice or community clinic, particularly if they are behaving aggressively, or if they are refusing help. Most patients who are acutely disturbed present no danger to others, however situations can evolve rapidly. Frontline staff need to... Full Article
it Capital punishment, my sixth great grandfather, and me By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Tue, 09 Apr 2019 16:49:48 +0000 On the 7th of June, 1753, Dr Archibald Cameron was executed at Tyburn. "The body, after hanging twenty minutes, was cut down: it was not quartered; but the heart was taken out and burnt. " 250 years later, his sixth great grandson, Robert Syned found himself deeply involved in the process of execution, as an expert witness in a case about the use... Full Article
it The sex lives of married Brits By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 09 May 2019 09:49:04 +0000 The National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles is a deep look into the sex lives of us brits - and has been running now for 30 years, giving us some longitudinal data about the way in which those sex lives have changed. The latest paper to be published, based on that data, looks at the frequency of sex - how often different groups are... Full Article
it Helping parents with children who display challenging behaviour By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 17 May 2019 14:50:07 +0000 Looking after a young child is hard enough, but when that child has learning difficulties and displays challenging behaviour - the burden on parents can be extreme. That behaviour may prompt a visit to the doctor, and in this podcast we’re talking about how parents can be supported in that - what services are available. We’ll also be discussing... Full Article
it What caused the drop in stroke mortality in the UK By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 23 May 2019 10:12:07 +0000 Stroke mortality rates have been declining in almost every country, and that reduction could result from a decline in disease occurrence or a decline in case fatality, or both. Broadly - is that decline down to better treatment or better prevention. Olena Seminog, a researcher, and and Mike Rayner, professor of population health, both from the... Full Article
it Talk evidence - cancer causing food, prostate cancer and disease definitions By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Sat, 25 May 2019 12:11:43 +0000 Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan are back again talking about what's happened in the world of evidence this month. (1.05) Carl rants about bacon causing cancer (7.10) Helen talks about prostate cancer, and we hear from the author of the research paper which won Research Paper Of The Year at the BMJ awards. We also cover disease definition and... Full Article
it I have never encountered an organisation as vicious in its treatment of whistleblowers as the NHS By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 04 Jul 2019 10:23:06 +0000 Margaret Heffernan has thought a lot about whistleblowing, and why companies don't respond well to it. She wrote the "Book Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril". In this podcast she talks about how culture, and groupthink, leads to a culture where whistleblowers are ignored, and why the NHS needs to change the way it treats... Full Article
it Fertility awareness based methods for pregnancy prevention By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Sat, 13 Jul 2019 17:38:01 +0000 Fertility awareness based methods of contraception are increasingly being used for pregnancy prevention. In the US, the proportion of contraceptive users who choose such methods has grown from 1% in 2008 to approximately 3% in 2014. Relative to other methods of pregnancy prevention, however, substantial misinformation exists around fertility... Full Article
it Physical activity and mortality - "The least active quartile did less than 5 minute per day" By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:29:32 +0000 We know that exercise is good for you - the WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity each week. That recommendation is built on evidence that relied on self reporting that may underestimate the amount of lower intensity exercise those people were doing, and at the... Full Article
it The government is lacking detail over Brexit planning By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Wed, 04 Sep 2019 17:43:31 +0000 Brexit. Who knows what’s going to happen in the next few weeks, months, years - the uncertainty is high. In the face of that, you’d hope that the government was doing all it could to plan for any eventuality - let alone for a massive, country altering one like suddenly crashing out without a deal - but Martin McKee, professor of public health at... Full Article
it Brexit - Planning for medicine shortages By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:22:17 +0000 This week we saw the release of the much awaited Yellowhammer documents from the government, documents which outline some of the risks involved with Britain’s sudden departure from the EU. The documents themselves outline that there are risks to the supply of medicines - but do not set out the detail of how those risks have been mitigated, and... Full Article
it Minimum unit pricing in Scotland By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 17:47:38 +0000 On the 1st of May, 2018 Scotland was the first country to try a new way of reducing alcohol consumption in its population. It introduced a minimum unit prices for alcohol. Now new research just published on BMJ.com is looking at the effect of that price increase - and measuring how well it has achieved the goal of reducing drinking in... Full Article
it Talk Evidence - digital clubbing, osteoarthritis & sustainable EBM By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Mon, 16 Dec 2019 19:36:54 +0000 We’re back for the December Talk Evidence, and this month we’re being very digital Firstly,(1.20) Helen tells us about arthritic fingers - should we be using prednisolone for treatment when people have painful osteoarthritis of the hand Then (13.30) Carl gets us all to check our fingers for clubbing, and we find out how useful it is as a test... Full Article
it Editors pick of education in 2019 By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 03 Jan 2020 14:58:44 +0000 If you’re lucky enough to not be back at work, you might be feeling like you need to quickly refresh your medical knowledge - and this podcast the BMJ’s education editors take you on a whistlestop tour through the BMJ’s education articles of 2019. Tom Nolan (GP in London) is joined by Navjoyt Ladher (GP in London), Anita Jain (GP in India) and... Full Article
it Is it possible to have fair pricing for medicines By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 17:50:54 +0000 Is it possible to have a fair price for medicines? Yes, according to a new collection just published on bmj.com. The authors set out to evaluate how we could improve the functioning of the market for medicines, to honestly compensate industry for innovation, whilst allowing the poorest to afford them. Suerie Moon, co-director of global health at... Full Article
it Writing a good outpatient letter means addressing it to the patient By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Fri, 07 Feb 2020 11:31:30 +0000 In many countries (including the UK and Australia) it is still common practice for hospital doctors to write letters to patients’ general practitioners (GPs) following outpatient consultations, and for patients to receive copies of these letters. However, Hugh Rayner, consultant nephrologist, and Peter Rees, former Chair of the Academy of... Full Article
it David Williams - everyday discrimination is an independent predictor of mortality By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 12:44:12 +0000 There comes a tipping point in all campaigns when the evidence is overwhelming and the only way to proceed is with action. According to David Williams, it’s time to tackle the disproportionate effects of race on patients in the UK. David Williams, from Harvard University, developed the Everyday Discrimination Scale that, in 1997, launched a new... Full Article
it Why we are failing patients with multimorbidity By feeds.bmj.com Published On :: Thu, 05 Mar 2020 14:54:02 +0000 We know that the number of people living with multiple health conditions is rising year on year, and yet training, guidelines, organisations and physical spaces in healthcare still largely focus on single diseases or organ systems. The means that patients in the NHS are often treated as if their conditions exist in isolation, and that their care... Full Article