Providing information to enable informed choices about healthcare sounds immediately appealing to most of us. But Minna Johansson, GP trainee and PhD student at the University of Gothenburg, argues that preventive medicine and expanding disease definitions have changed the ethical premises of informed choice and our good intentions may...

Katja Iversen, CEO of Women Deliver, joins Rebecca Coombes to explain why the UN sustainable development goals are unachievable if we don't empower women and girls to take control of their health, wellbeing, and reproductive rights. http://womendeliver.org/

We do we know about the weekend effect? As Martin McKee puts it in an editorial on thebmj.com, "almost nothing is clear in this tangled tale" In this roundtable, Navjoyt Ladher, Analysis editor for The BMJ is joined by some of the key academics who have published research and commented on the weekend effect to make sense of what we know and...

Interviews from the Women deliver conference in Copenhagen. Catrin Schulte-Hillen, co-ordinator of reproductive health and sexual violence care at Medecins Sans Frontieres, explains why the development community shouldn't conflate sexual violence and access to abortion.

Global evidence indicates that mandated treatment of drug dependence conflicts with drug users’ human rights and is not effective in treating addiction. Karsten Lunze, associate professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, joins us to describe the evidence, and why he is convinced seemingly counter intuitive hard reduction...

The same piece of evidence may reach you via a journalist, or via your doctor - but the way in which that evidence is communicated is changed by your relationship between that person. Julia Beluz from Vox and Victor Montori from the Mayo Clinic join us to discuss if it's possible to reconcile those competing points of view.

We’re taught that patients' ideas, concerns, and expectations are central to a successful consultation, but has ICEing gone too far? A “What your patient is thinking” article published this week talks about the pressure that asking questions in the wrong way can put on a patient. Sophie Cook, education editor for The BMJ, is joined by the author...

"I say to all Australian doctors - young, old, the political and the apolitical - that on this depends not just our ethical credibility as a profession, but our shared humanity. " Following the leaked emails published in The Guardian newspaper, alleging abuse of asylum seekers detained by the Australian government on the Pacific island of Nauru,...

Lily was diagnosed at 14 years old with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma and received six rounds of chemotherapy and two weeks of radiotherapy. She survived but now lives with the long term effects of that therapy - and joins us to discuss how it has impacted her quality of life. We're also joined by Saif Ahmad and Thankamma Ajithkumar, oncologists...

Oversimplification and lack of evidence stigmatise people with mental illness and impede prevention efforts, says Simon Wessley, professor of psychiatry at King's College London, in an editorial published on thebmj.com. Read the full editorial: http://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i4869

Allocation concealment - blinding which arm of a trial a patient is randomised to - is being questioned in an analysis published on thebmj.com. David Torgerson, director of the York Trials Unit at the university of York and colleagues have been looking at the way in which trials do this randomisation, and how they subsequently report it - and...

The BMJ publishes a variety of education articles, to help doctors improve their practice. Often authors join us in our podcast to give tips on putting their recommendations into practice. In this new monthly audio round-up The BMJ’s clinical editors discuss what they have learned, and how they may alter their practice. In our second audio...

State regulation is necessary for safety, says Simon Capewell, professor of public health and policy at the University of Liverpool. Richard Lilford, professor of public health at the University of Warwick, argues that restricting adults’ choice can undermine such aims. Read the debate: http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i6341

Evidence shows using electronic health records can increase efficiency, and reduce preventable medical errors - but only if they are used properly. However, in the US, the president of the American Medical Association calls them almost unusable. In this debate, Richard Hurley is joined by George Gellert, Regional Medical Informatics Officer at...

The UK government published its report Childhood Obesity: a Plan for Action, in August 2016. A new analysis article takes them to task for the inadequacy of that response to a growing problem. Neena Modi is a professor of neonatal medicine, at Imperial College London, and president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and joins...

Scott Murray, professor of primary palliative care at the University of Edinburgh, has written, and talked in this podcast before, about the benefits of early palliative care - and today he’s back to explain how illness trajectory, and the pattern of decline at the end of life, affects 4 main areas of wellness - physical, social, psychological and...

We're creating a manifesto for better evidence. The centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, and the BMJ, are asking what are the problem with medical evidence, and how can we fix them? In this second discussion we went to Nottingham​ University, to find out what the people who create the bread and butter of EBM -...

It’s been called “the universal panacea” - exercise has a positive effect on almost all health measures, and governments are actively campaigning for us to do more. But at the opposite end of the scale, the realisation that some people may be addicted to exercise is gaining traction. In this podcast we're joined by Heather Hausenblas - professor...

The 2014 west African Ebola epidemic shone a harsh light on the health systems of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. While decades of domestic and international investment had contributed to substantial progress on the Millennium Development Goals, national health systems remained weak and were unable to cope with the epidemic. Margaret Kruk...

Air pollution is a truly damaging environmental insult to the human body. The numbers of premature deaths, in the UK alone, that can be attributed to it are calculated to be 40,000 a year. Yet despite this, action to tackle the problem - as with the other huge environmental issue of our time, climate change - is distinctly lacking. Robin...

"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...

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...

The BMJ has been campaigning for an end to “too much medicine” - the pernicious effect of marketing on the range of tests and treatments that doctors offer patients - tests and treatments which are motivated by the financial reward to the system, than the health of the individual. A new analysis on BMJ.com takes a look at what’s happening in the...

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...

Loss of a loved one can be very painful. When seeking support, some people turn to their doctor. Because of their pivotal role in the community, physicians can provide excellent support for bereaved people and can often direct them to additional resources. Katherine Shear, a physician, and Stephanie Muldberg, a bereaved mother, join us to discuss...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

If you're a patient in the UK, increasingly, your first interaction with the healthcare system won't be the traditional face to fact chat with your doctor - instead you'll have a telephone consultation. The prevalence of these telephone consultations is increasing, and being promoted by CCGs and private companies who administer them - usually as...

Assessing young people with possible eating disorders can be complex for a variety of reasons. Building a therapeutic relationship with a young person with a possible eating disorder and their family is key to enabling a thorough assessment and ongoing management, but it introduces difficult issues regarding confidentiality and risk. In this...

Winter pressures on NHS services have kicked in a little bit earlier than usual. So here to discuss that, and also the issue of how local NHS leaders can support staff in times of extreme pressure. Discussing that with Rebecca Coombes, The BMJ’s head of news and views, are Matthew Inada-Kim, a consultant in acute and general medicine at...

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer is a new strategy that was introduced towards the end of the 20th century with the aim of reducing tumour size - rendering an otherwise inoperable tumour operable, allowing more conservative surgery, and hopefully improving overall survival. Although data indicate that the first rationale remains valid,...

Bobbie Farsides is professor of clinical and biomedical ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She’s been described as one of the few people that is acceptable to “both sides” of the assisted dying debate. This week she joins us to talk about the way in which the debate on euthanasia has played out in the UK - and hear why she thinks it’s...

Our latest debate asks, should doctors recommend acupuncture for pain? Asbjørn Hróbjartsson from the Center for Evidence-based Medicine at University of Southern Denmark argues no - evidence show's it's no worse than placebo. Mike Cummings, medical director of the British Medical Acupuncture Society argues yes - that there is evidence of efficacy,...

That’s Jo Shapiro is a surgeon and manager in Brigham and Women’s hospital, she’s also director of the Center for Professionalism and Peer Support, and has written an editorial for The BMJ on tackling unprofessional behaviour. In this discussion, she and I talked about what she thinks (beyond the illegal) are the most damaging behaviours seen...

We’re in an era of big data - and hospitals and GPs are generating an inordinate amount of it that has potential to improve everyone’s health. But only if it’s used properly. New research published on www.bmj.com this week describes another set of information, about that data, that the authors believe could be just as important as the data...

Worldwide, the rate of type II diabetes is estimated to be around 1 in 11 people - about 9%. For the Pima people of Arizona, 38% of the adult population have the condition - but across the border in Mexico, the rate drops down to 7%. The difference between the groups is their life experience - one side displaced, the other on their traditional...

Each time you order a test for a child, do you think the population that makes up the baseline against which the results are measured? It turns out that that historically those reference intervals have been based on adults - but children, especially neonates and adolescents, are undergoing physiological changes that mean those reference intervals...

Don Berwick, president emeritus of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, and former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In this conversation he discusses how he went from being a paediatrician to running Medicare for Obama, how we can create headroom in stressed systems, and breaking the rules to make things better...

Getting feedback from people who use NHS services is essential to assessing their value - and improving their quality. Hospitals and general practices widely post information about patient's satisfaction with their services on their websites, but approach tells us little about how feedback changes things on the ground . In this podcast, James...

Doctors and the farming industry are often blamed for overuse of antibiotics that spurs the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance - but the professions are using different methods to combat resistance and reduce overuse. In this roundtable, we bring medics and vets together to discuss the problem - where antibiotic resistance arises, how...

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...

It’s been quite a year for the NHS - it just turned 70, had a winter crisis like never before, got over junior doctor strikes, but then was hit by a series of scandals about breast screening, and now opiate prescriptions. At the same time, we’ve seen demonstrations in favour of the service and even widespread public backing for more money. So...

The number of people estimated to be latently infected with TB - that is infected with TB, which has not yet manifested symptoms - is around 2 billion. That is 1 in 3 people on the planet are infected by the bacteria. The World Health Organization’s website notes that on average 5-10% of those infected with TB will develop active TB. That number...

Brits have a reputation as Europe’s boozers - and for good reason, with alcohol consumption higher than much of the rest of the continent. That reputation is extended to our young people too - but is it still deserved? Joanna Inchley, senior research fellow at the University of St Andrews, explains new research on decreasing drinking -...