National 400m hurdles champion Rushell Clayton is concerned about what she says are inequalities between men and women in track and field. Clayton was speaking at a Women in Sports Conference in Kingston recently and discussed issues of inequality...

Premier League Clubs Association (PLCA) vice-chairman Carvel Stewart says that the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) could return in July at the earliest. The nation’s top flight has been on hiatus since March, with four games left in the regular...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC): Former Windies fast bowler Kenny Benjamin says that cricket in the Caribbean is suffering from players’ lack of loyalty and commitment and that intervention is required to save the sport. The Antiguan called for coaches...

Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) general secretary Dalton Wint says that any potential changes to the Concacaf hexagonal round for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers could present challenges to the nation’s aim of qualifying for Qatar 2022. Wint’s...

The UK’s austerity programme has disproportionately affected children and people with disabilities, says David Taylor-Robinson, a senior clinical lecturer in public health at the University of Liverpool. He joins us to discuss why the evidence shows the vulnerable are hit hardest by the cuts to public services, despite the UN conventions on...

Those who rise to the top in medicine see themselves as hardworking extroverts with a caring nature, suggests an unscientific analysis of the answers given by contributors to BMJ Confidential. But ask about their pet hates and another, less nurturing, side emerges. We gathered 6 former confidentialists in The BMJ studio to moan over mince...

Multimorbidity presents a number of different challenges, for the patients living with the conditions, but also for the health professionals caring for them in systems that often are not designed with these more complex needs in mind. Emma Wallace, general practice lecturer, and Susan Smith, a professor of general practice at the Royal College of...

Michelle Sinclar, a GP in Hampshire who is concerned that GP premises aren't fit for purpose and limit her ability to provide fully rounded patient care. BMJ Voices is a collection of readers’ experiences of working in the NHS. For this, The BMJ is seeking short audio submissions from UK listeners. These submissions will be published on...

In this podcast Alexandra Barratt, professor of public health at the University of Sydney, discusses how questions about overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening programmes were first raised 45 years ago, and why it has taken so long for the concept to become mainstream. Read her full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h867

In the US the licence, or marketing authorisation, for alteplase is limited to 0-3 hours after onset of stroke, but some other countries - including the UK and Australia - have extended the licence to 4.5 hours. In an analysis article on thebmj.com Brian Alper, vice president of evidence based medicine research and development at Dynamed, and...

The future of health and social care looks certain to be a defining issue in the forthcoming UK general election. Social care has been subject to deep public spending cuts, raising concerns about the sustainability of services in the future. Whoever wins the next election will need to grapple with providing joined up health and social care...

A recent review by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council concluded that “there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective”, but Europe currently spends €1bn annually on such remedies - often at the recommendation of doctors. So a recent head to head debate in The BMJ asks,...

Elder abuse is often the result of the organisation of health systems rather than the fault of individuals, argue Jolanda Lindenberg and Rudi Westendorp, two authors of a recent analysis paper. They call for system abuse to be acknowledged and addressed by incorporating older people’s views when designing health services. Read the full...

Hepatic encephalopathy constitutes a spectrum of neuropsychiatric abnormalities, beginning with subtle psychomotor changes and progressing to confusion with asterixis, somnolence, and then coma, arising in patients with impaired liver function. In this podcast, Tim Cross, a consultant hepatologist from the Royal Liverpool University Hospital,...

Pleural effusions are common, with an estimated 1-1.5 million new cases in the United States and 200 000-250 000 in the United Kingdom each year. Rahul Bhatnagar, academic clinical lecturer at the University of Bristol, describes how pleural effusions may be investigated and treated in the community and secondary care, with a particular focus on...

They have a big impact on the diet of American citizens, and those of most Western nations, so why does the expert advice underpinning US government dietary guidelines not take account of all the relevant scientific evidence asks Nina Teicholz. Read the full investigation: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4962

The “correct” rates of discretional interventions are difficult to define. However, David Hamilton and Colin Howie point out that discrepancies in usage of knee arthroscopy within the UK suggest the organisation of the care pathway may be an important determinant Read their full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4720

Europe's common agricultural policy (CAP) on sugar is due to change, and Emilie Aguirre, from the UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research at the University of Cambridge, argues that an influx of cheap high fructose corn syrup (HFCS, isoglucose) into the European market will have a negative effect on on the health of the continent. Read the...

The UK Parliament's Health Select Committee's recent report on childhood obesity says 1 in 5 children are obese by the time they leave school. The committee calls for legislation to turn the tide by taxing sugary drinks, a pre-watershed ban on junk food advertising, and investment in public health. We joined Sarah Wollaston, conservative MP for...

Larger portions of food increase consumption. Theresa Marteau, director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss how government action to tackle portion size and packaging could help reset our appetites and make us thinner. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5863

Francesca Conway, from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London is co-author of an article on diagnosis of COPD. She joins us to discuss the major guideline recommendations, and highlights where they concur and where they differ. Read the full article: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6171

Around half of people aged over 75 meet the diagnostic criteria for chronic kidney disease (CKD), but there is debate about what this means for patients as only a proportion of elderly people with CKD will have clinically important outcomes as a result. In this podcast, Dr Arif Khwaja argues that for CKD in the elderly, we should focus on...

“Juliet”, a woman living in London, was diagnosed with a mysterious illness in November 2015, Ian Cropley, a consultant in infectious disease from The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, was there to investigate. In this podcast, we find out how Zika, once a little known virus causing a rash and fever, has subsequently become a global health...

Nick Oliver, consultant diabetologist at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust and Philippa Cooper, who has type I diabetes, join us to explain how structured education works for patients, and give tips on self management. Read the full review: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i998

However well intentioned, working in detention centres amounts to complicity in torture, says David Berger, a district medical officer in emergency medicine at Broome Hospital in Australia. However, Steven Miles, chair in bioethics at the University of Minnesota thinks that they play an important role in telling the world about conditions in...

Plan, do, study, act cycles, or PDSA cycles, are the basis of many quality improvement projects, they're a model to trial changes and feed the lessons from each test into the next. Why are they a popular method, and how do you get the best out of them? And what on earth happens when they explode? Harriet Vickers asks Julie Reed, National...

James Barrett, president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists, and Nina, a trans woman, join us to discuss how difficult it can be for trans people to access gender clinics, and what barriers are faced by the community after their transition has been completed. Read James Barrett's personal...

In February World Health Organization (WHO) declared the microcephaly epidemic in South America an international public health emergency. Today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, has confirmed that it’s is Zika virus which is causing that microcephaly.  The outbreak was originally spotted in Recife, in Brazil, and it’s...

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/

How can asking patient to tell us their story improve healthcare? Helen Morant, content lead at BMJ, talks us through her project getting healthcare professionals to sit down with patients and record their conversations, and what on earth this has to do with quality improvement. We also hear some of the recordings she has gathered through the...

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...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has embraced a new model of drug testing and marketing called “adaptive pathways”, allowing new drugs for “unmet medical needs” to be launched on the market faster, on the basis of fewer data. While industry claims this is necessary, an analysis on thebmj.com looks at the assumptions underlying the new pathway,...

"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

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is an acute viral respiratory tract infection caused by the novel betacoronavirus. Cases have been limited to the Arabian Peninsula and its surrounding countries, and to travellers from the Middle East or their contacts. The clinical spectrum of infection varies from no symptoms or mild respiratory...

Glasgow GP, writer, broadcaster, and The BMJ's weekly columnist Margaret McCartney joins us to talk about her new book "The State of Medicine: Keeping the Promise of the NHS". Read all of Margaret's columns: goo.gl/iKmmie

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

Persistent physical symptoms are common and include those symptoms that last at least three months and are insufficiently explained by a medical condition after adequate examination and investigation. Observational studies in primary care report that women, especially those aged 35-45 years, more commonly present with these symptoms. In this...

All doctors, irrespective of their specialty or the setting in which they work, will care for patients who die. Around half of all deaths occur in hospitals. Evidence suggests that the quality of communication around this process is poorer in hospitals than in other settings, according to responses from relatives who have experienced bereavement....

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...

When a person’s heart or breathing stops and the cause is reversible, immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) offers a chance of life. However, when a person is dying—for example, from organ failure, frailty, or advanced cancer—and his or her heart stops as a final part of a dying process, CPR will not prevent death and may do harm. But...

Viral exanthema can cause rash in a pregnant woman and should be considered even in countries that have comprehensive vaccination programmes. Measles and rubella can cause intrauterine death. Intrauterine infection with rubella can lead to congenital rubella syndrome in the liveborn baby. In this podcast, Jack Carruthers, honorary clinical...

The BMJ publishes a lot of educational articles, and in an attempt to help you with your CPD, we have put together this round-up. Our authors and editors will reflect on the key learning points in the articles we discuss, and explain how they may change their practice in light of that new understanding. In this week's round up we're...

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...

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,...

Thankfully, electrical injuries are relatively uncommon - but that means that lack of evidence regarding the management of patients who have been electrocuted, which can cause concern for clinicians when these patients present. In this podcast, Cath Brizzel, clinical editor for The BMJ, is joined by one of the authors of a clinical update on the...

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...