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 inadvertently advance overmedicalisation. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2230
May 09, 2016•9 min
Or, the one where Fiona Moss and Don Berwick tells us what they think quality improvement is. Fiona Moss is dean, Royal Society of Medicine, and Don Berwick is president emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Don's talk and the interview with Fiona were both recorded at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, Gothenburg, April 2016. Watch out for the extended versions of these recordings, up next Friday.
May 06, 2016•14 min
Medical error is not included on death certificates or in rankings of cause of death. Martin Makary, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, joins us to explain why we don't measure medical error, and why it is so important that we start. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
May 04, 2016•12 min
Nicholas Hopkinson, reader in respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, joins us to explain why a new report from the Royal College of Physicians supports the role of electronic cigarettes as part of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1745
Apr 29, 2016•15 min
The BMJ recently held a discussion between experts in the fields of general practice, emergency medicine, and paediatrics about the state of out of hours care in the UK, and crucially offered their vision for a better service. Are children a special case, can urgent care ‘hubs’ be a silver bullet, is NHS 111 up to the job of triaging patients, do there enough clinicians involved in out of hours care, and are other countries doing a better job? The state of out of hours care can best be described...
Apr 27, 2016•23 min
It's bad practice to prescribe a brand name drug when a cheaper, viable and approved generic is available. But, particularly in the US, this happens too much, at major cost to the health system. The team behind Michigan State University's paediatric clinics set out to increase their prescribing of generics, and found that much of the problem was that whilst brand names lodged in staff and patient's minds, generic names were easily forgotten. Sath Sudhanthar, paediatrician and assistant professor...
Apr 22, 2016•11 min
Sudden cardiac death of young athletes needs to be avoided but does screening really help? Hans Van Braband, researcher at the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre, joins us to explain that the evidence for screening doesn't show benefit, and may lead to harm. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1156
Apr 22, 2016•17 min
Sheyna Gifford has an unusual claim to fame—she is the first doctor ever to work on Mars. Not the planet Mars, of course, but Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii, whose dusty, rust coloured landscape is probably the closest on earth to the red planet. She is serving on the Hi-Seas programme, a mission run the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA, whose purpose is to simulate a three year voyage to Mars and back. Since last August Gifford and six other scientists have been living in a 1000 square f...
Apr 15, 2016•30 min
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 from there that the authors of this research paper have been carrying out imaging of the skulls of babies born with microcephaly and probable Zika virus i...
Apr 14, 2016•19 min
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 view: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1694
Apr 11, 2016•17 min
Alcohol consumption has been a perennial problem, but recently The economic downturn and rises in alcohol taxation seem to have stemmed the persistent rise in associated mortality. Nick Sheron, head of clinical herpetology at Southampton university, and one of the authors of an analysis article, explains how government fiscal policy has the ability to immediately reduce alcohol related deaths.
Apr 08, 2016•23 min
Abi Rimmer, BMJ Careers reporter, talks to junior doctors on the picket line at Northwick Park Hospital. Read her report: http://bmj.co/1qydmFq
Apr 08, 2016•6 min
Abi Rimmer, BMJ careers reporter, talks to the cast of hospital comedy Greenwing, who explain why they're supporting junior doctors on the picket line. Read her report: http://bmj.co/1oJ2W41
Apr 08, 2016•8 min
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 Institute for Healthcare Research CLAHRC (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) for north west London. Read all of Julie's paper (fo...
Apr 08, 2016•14 min
The Francis report, the Berwick report, the Keogh review - all of these have highlighted how important learning from mistakes is in healthcare. Reporting incidents is key to this, and in this podcast Jen Perry, from BMJ Quality, tells Harriet Vickers the whats, hows and whys of incident reporting. And Emily Hotton, previously a foundation doctor at Royal United Hospital Bath, UK, talks about how her project helped junior doctors at the hospital become more confident at incident reporting, and bu...
Apr 08, 2016•16 min
As France has moved in recent weeks to clear camps where migrants stay while trying to cross illegally into Britain, Médecins Sans Frontières has just opened a new one. Sophie Arie talks to Caroline Gollé, medical coordinator at the Médecins Sans Frontières La Linière camp. Read more about the camp: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1696
Mar 31, 2016•3 min
Depression in pregnancy affects up to 10% of women, a rate only slightly lower than in the postpartum period. Yet, as few as 20% of pregnant women with depression receive adequate treatment. Louise Howard, professor in women’s mental health at King's College London, joins us to discuss the clinical review on depression in pregnancy. Read the full article: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1547
Mar 24, 2016•17 min
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 these camps. Read the full debate: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1600
Mar 24, 2016•16 min
Jeremy Hunt is a health secretary under pressure. In this exclusive interview with The BMJ’s editor in chief Fiona Godlee, the man who could soon become England's longest serving health secretary insists he has more to give. The steady hand brought in to steer the NHS away from the front pages has been shaking in recent months, but the grip seems to be intact. As he greets The BMJ in his Whitehall office, Jeremy Hunt does not betray the signs of a man buckling under the pressure despite a tumult...
Mar 23, 2016•20 min
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
Mar 14, 2016•28 min
Gareth Iacobucci talks to Candace Imison, director of policy at The Nuffield Trust, about the problems facing GPs, and how primary care could be changed. "5 minutes with... Candace Imison": http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1378
Mar 14, 2016•11 min
As the junior doctors in England strike, concerns for the workforce are foremost in the minds of those running the NHS. A summary is available here: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1510 In The BMJ roundtable, recorded at the Nuffield Trust Health Policy Summit on Friday 4 March 2016, we asked our participants if they think the NHS is in crisis, and what they think can be done to help those working across the system. The participants were Clifford Mann, president of the Royal College of Emerg...
Mar 09, 2016•37 min
“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 emergency. We also discuss how the infection is linked to microcephaly, and what we still need to understand to control the disease. All Zika virus reso...
Feb 26, 2016•28 min
How should health professionals engage with this increasingly popular but unproved practice? Aubrey Cunnington, a consultant paediatrician from Imperial College London joins us to discuss. Read the full editorial: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i227
Feb 23, 2016•10 min
The Department of Health is proposing to extend charging for migrants into some NHS primary care services and emergency departments. Although the government asserts that the NHS is “overly generous to those who have only a temporary relationship with the UK,” Lucy Jones, UK lead for Doctors of the World says these proposals will disproportionately harm vulnerable undocumented migrants. Read the full editorial: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i685
Feb 19, 2016•15 min
In recent weeks, the firearms controversy has again lit up the media in the United States, with clarification that anyone engaged in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks. But, argues Fred Rivara from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, we may never know its effects because of the continuing ban on federal funding of research into gun violence. http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i578
Feb 11, 2016•13 min
This week, junior doctors in England have taken industrial action for the second time in as many months after failing to reach agreement with the government over their proposed new contract. Tom Moberley and Abi Rimmer, from BMJ Careers, went to the picket lines at Northwick Park Hospital, and University Hospital Lewisham to talk to the doctors, and their supporters. Keep up to date with the junior doctor's continuing industrial action with our live blog: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2016/02/08/juni...
Feb 10, 2016•14 min
The Rapid diagnostic tests have the potential to reduce the overtreatment of malaria by 95%, but time and extensive logistical, behavioural, and technical interventions may be required to achieve this. Eleanor Ochodo from the Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care, at Stellenbosch University, joins us to discuss. Read the full article: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i107
Feb 05, 2016•18 min
Iqbal Malik, consultant cardiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London, joins Mabel Chew to discuss the role of angioplasty and stenting in patients with stable angina. Read the full article online: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i205
Feb 05, 2016•12 min
James Smoliga, from High Point University, North Carolina, and Ken Rundell, from The Commonwealth Medical College, Pennsylvania, join us to discuss how to test for, and manage, exercise induced bronchoconstriction, and particularly how to distinguish it from other respiratory conditions. Read the full review at http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h6951
Jan 09, 2016•23 min
