The BMJ has long campaigned for better patient and public participation in research, making the case that it leads to better outcomes for patients and for society - but an article published in the Christmas edition of The BMJ goes further than that - and talks about the insights that participants in research provide- insights that the academic team would never be able to have themselves. In this podcast, Seb Crutch a professor of neuropsychology, and Martin Rossor, national director for dementia...
Jan 05, 2021•27 min
As 2021 hoves into view, we look back at a year of extraordinary evidence. Helen Macdonald is joined by Joe Ross, one of The BMJ's research editors, as well as a researcher at Yale. They discuss the way in which clinical pre-prints have become an important part of the research ecosystem, especially during the pandemic, and pick up on some of the non-coronavirus things you might have missed in the deluge of data.
Jan 03, 2021•36 min
In this end-of-year podcast from Deep Breath In, we're bringing you a light hearted look back at 2020, and trying to remember some of the non-covid-19 medicine that has crossed our desks. This festive quiz features the deep breath in gang, as well as Cat Chatfield from the Wellbeing podcast, and Helen Macdonald from our Talk Evidence podcasts. Reading list; Thyroid disease assessment and management: summary of NICE guidance https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m41 Thyroid hormones treatment for s...
Jan 01, 2021•1 hr 5 min
If you've had time to digest this year's Christmas edition of The BMJ, you might have wondered how those papers get into The BMJ. Well in this Talk Evidence podcast, Helen Macdonald, UK research editor at The BMJ talks to two of her research team colleagues, John Fletcher and Tim Feeney, as they talk through why they chose their favourite papers. Toxicological analysis of George’s marvellous medicine https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4467 Does medicine run in the family—evidence from three ge...
Dec 28, 2020•40 min
How do human behaviours affect patient outcomes? And what has that got to do with Christmas? Graham Shaw, director of Critical Factors, and Peter Brennan, a maxillofacial surgeon in Portsmouth, join us to explain what human factors are, why they’re not a bigger part of medical training, and talk about their importance as the NHS comes under greater and greater pressure because of the surge in covid-19 cases. They also offer a word of advice to Santa, about making sure a festive never-event never...
Dec 24, 2020•43 min
Every year, the BMJ has a charity appeal - we’ve regularly focused on organisations like MSF, or Lifebox - providing support to areas of the world which don’t have good healthcare provision… This year though, covid-19 has changed everything - and we’re focussed inwards, on the UK. With growing unemployment, sections of the population being laid off, and with the well documented delays in receiving universal credit - food insecurity has become a major issue in the sixth largest economy in the wor...
Dec 23, 2020•28 min
Until hear death in 2019, Annabel and her husband James Weaver, spent a lot of time together in hospitals - in patient and outpatient wards, waiting in makeshift waiting rooms in corridors and atriums. And while you or I might notice things about the way in which the hospital looks - James and Annabel noticed the way in which is sounded. James is perusing a PhD at Queen Mary University of London into acoustics and the intelligibility of sound - and in this podcast we delve into the sound of a ho...
Dec 22, 2020•46 min
Robert Poynton is an associate fellow of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, and author of books designed to help people work in ways which help both their career and wellbeing. In this wellbeing podcast, we focus on "Do Pause; you are not a to do list" - a book that Cat has had on her to do list for months. Rob explain to us what the concept of "pausing" is, and why he thinks a small gesture can have a significant effect on our ability to deal with the stresses of day to day w...
Dec 18, 2020•39 min
As London and some neighbouring counties move up to tier 3, and Germany, Italy and The Netherlands impose tighter restrictions over over the coming days of Christmas, in this podcast we ask - should Christmas gatherings be cancelled? In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, talks to Matt Morgan, a consultant in a intensive care medicine in Cardiff, and Helen Salisbury, GP in Oxfordshire. They're joined by Mike Tildesley, reader in mathematics at Warwick School of Life Sciences,...
Dec 16, 2020•48 min
The last few weeks we’ve been feverish in our coverage of vaccines - the evidence base for them is, how they’ve been evaluated and licensed, and who’s going to get them first. But what we’ve not covered much is what it’s like to do, and take part in, a vaccine trial. In this special podcast, we’re going to hear from John Wright, director of the Bradford Institute of Health Research. He’s been keeping a “doctors diary” for BBC radio, and in this podcast we’re doing a deeper dive into that - and f...
Dec 14, 2020•30 min
The vaccines are being rolled out - but approval is still on an emergency basis, and the evidence underpinning those decisions is only just becoming available for scrutiny. In this podcast we talk to Baruch Fischhoff, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and expert on public health communication about how that messaging should be done. Peter Doshi, associate editor at The BMJ, and vaccine regulation researcher also joins us to talk about the data now released on the vaccine trials - what ques...
Dec 11, 2020•47 min
As the first people outside of a trial have started receiving Pfizer's sars-cov-2 vaccine, including Matt, but that's not the end of the story for the pandemic, there are still logistics of rollout, plus treating those who have already contracted the disease. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, talks to Matt Morgan, a consultant in a intensive care medicine in Cardiff, and Helen Salisbury, GP in Oxfordshire. They discuss why it's impossible to get the vaccine into care hom...
Dec 08, 2020•52 min
Anne Hicks, is an emergency medicine consultant in Plymouth, and for 16 years was the medical director for the British Antarctic Survey (she stepped down last year). The British Antarctic Survey operates all through the antarctic winter - where for 90 days, the sun sets and plunges their base into cold and darkness. So who better to give us some advice on coping with the strict covid-19 rules during our winter period. Anne talks to Cat Chatfield about the ways in which structure, even the seemin...
Dec 04, 2020•34 min
As the first vaccine for corona virus is approved, and England joins the other nations of the UK outside of full lockdown, we are all entering tiers of restrictions - variable across the country, which will continue until that vaccine coverage is enough to slow transmission in the community. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, talks to Matt Morgan, a consultant in a intensive care medicine in Cardiff, and Helen Salisbury, GP in Oxfordshire, and are re-joined by Karl Fristo...
Dec 02, 2020•46 min
The government has decided to pursue a strategy of mass-testing in Liverpool, in a pilot to see what effect that has on containment of corona virus. A lot of criticism has been levelled at the scheme, from the sensitivity of the lateral flow test used, to whether this is screening and should be referred to the national screening committee to be evaluated. Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool is evaluating the project, and joins us to explai...
Dec 01, 2020•40 min
The BMJ is a champion of openness and transparency in research, in clinical practice and in health policy. However, if you’ve kept and eye on the journals recently, you’ll have seen that governments have been less diligent about keeping an eye on competing interests than they should be. In this podcast we’re joined by Jolyon Maugham QC - one of the founding members of the Good Law Project, who have successfully litigated against the government on Brexit, and are now turning their eyes to procure...
Nov 26, 2020•48 min
As further promising news emerges of vaccine effectiveness, although still with no data published, and as plans emerge for the return home of university students and limited festive winter celebrations. But as we talked about in the last podcast, there needs to be a concerted effort to re-centre patients and the public within the decisions made about how the NHS will treat covid patients and those with continuing healthcare conditions impacted by the pandemic. National Voices, a coalition of cha...
Nov 24, 2020•51 min
Uncertainty abounds - even as we get better data on treatments, with the big RCTs beginning to report, and new trials on masks, the evidence remains uncertain, in both the statistical realm (confidence intervals crossing 0) and in what to do in the face of that continuing lack of clear effect. As always Helen Macdonald and Duncan Jarvies are looking at the evidence, and this week are joined by John Brodersen, professor of general practice at the University of Copenhagen. Helen talks to Bram Roch...
Nov 21, 2020•34 min
Clare Gerada and Zaid Al-Najjar have been treating doctors for a while now, through the NHS Practitioner Programme. In that time they have noticed some themes in the issues that bring doctors to them, from isolation to stress. In this podcast they reflect on what they've learned about the problems that affect doctors, and how covid-19 has exacerbated some, and surprisingly reduced others. Their book Beneath the White Coat: Doctors, Their Minds and Mental Health is out now https://www.routledge.c...
Nov 20, 2020•30 min
Covid-19 continues its grip on the Northern Hemisphere alongside news of a vaccine trial showing real success at first glance. In this second wave update, we explore the latest issues with healthcare professionals from primary care, secondary care, and public health, and discuss what is happening in their field, and put their questions to experts. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, talks to Matt Morgan, a consultant in a intensive care medicine in Cardiff, and Helen Salis...
Nov 17, 2020•58 min
In the first wave of covid-19, hospitals started to reconfigure space and services, to provide rest areas and food for staff, to help them cope with the surge in patients. Michael West, professor professor of work and organisational psychology at Lancaster University Management School, returns to the podcast to talk about how well those changes helped staff - and what needs to be done, now that a second wave is hitting, to make sure those essential services don't disappear. www.bmj.com/wellbeing...
Nov 13, 2020•34 min
Covid-19 continues its grip on the Northern Hemisphere alongside news of a vaccine trial showing real success at first glance. In this second wave update, we explore the latest issues with healthcare professionals from primary care, secondary care, and public health, and discuss what is happening in their field, and put their questions to experts. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, talks to Alison Pittard, a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine in Leeds, ...
Nov 11, 2020•51 min
A lump in the throat is a classic GP presentation, but one that often causes a lot of worry. Many people are struggling with high levels of anxiety anyway at the moment, and this may manifest physical symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia and dysphagia. In this week’s episode, we discuss how to differentiate between causes of a lump in the throat: is my patient experiencing laryngopharyngeal reflux, or could it be cancer? How do we reassure distressed patients when we need to refer them on for ima...
Nov 05, 2020•59 min
As the second spike in covid-19 cases grows, we want to take stock of what's happening in the NHS. In these second wave updates, clinicians from primary care, secondary care, and public health, discuss what is happening in their field, and put questions to experts. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ talks to Matt Morgan, consultant in intensive care medicine in Cardiff and Helen Salisbury, GP in Oxfordshire, and Nisreen Alwan, associate professor in public health at the Un...
Nov 03, 2020•58 min
In this talk evidence covid-19 update, we’re taking on risk - how do you figure out your individual risk of dying from the disease? Try QCovid, but remember that it’s figuring out your risk back in April. When it comes to talking about risk, very few people actually engage with the number, so Alex Freeman from the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge joins us to describe their research into more effective ways of presenting it. Huseyin Naci, from the L...
Oct 30, 2020•41 min
Chris Whitty probably needs no introduction to our UK audience - he's the chief medical advisor to the UK government, has played a pivotal role in shaping the country's response to Covid-19. He rarely does interviews - so in this conversation we wanted to ask him the questions that matter to clinicians, about how the pandemic will impact them over the winter. This was recorded yesterday, just before the announcement of the strict lockdowns in France and Germany. For more covid-19 coverage www.bm...
Oct 29, 2020•39 min
As the world sees an upsurge in infections, this "second wave" feels different to the first - we have a much better understanding of the biology of the virus, in hospitals, guidelines for treatment have been rapidly developed... and the pipeline of research to improve that has been created. But a lot of questions remain - particularly about the dynamics of the spread of respiratory viruses. Which brings us onto this episode - in these weekly discussions, clinicians from across the healthservice ...
Oct 27, 2020•46 min
Personality disorder is often referred to as the “Cinderella” diagnosis of mental health. Around 1 in 20 people is estimated to have a personality disorder, and it is a neglected and under-resourced area of our healthcare system. In this week’s episode, we discuss the stigma surrounding personality disorder, which can often manifest itself in high levels of anxiety for both patients and GPs, when it comes to diagnosing and managing it, and how to help a patient come to terms with their diagnosis...
Oct 22, 2020•59 min
As the second spike in covid-19 cases grows, we want to take stock of what's happening in the NHS. In these second wave updates, clinicians from primary care, secondary care, and public health, discuss what is happening in their field, and put questions to experts. In this podcast, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ talks to Matt Morgan, consultant in intensive care medicine in Cardiff and Helen Salisbury, GP in Oxfordshire - they discuss how full hospitals are getting, how many covid-19 c...
Oct 21, 2020•32 min
The "second wave" of covid is hitting the UK, and clinicians are anticipating a spike in demand in the NHS. The inevitability of that is weighing on NHS staff's minds. In this podcast, Cormac Doyle, a retired senior army officer, who specialises in military mental health/ veterans and support other with psychological trauma, returns to the podcast to talk about his experience of deployment in the military, and how individuals and their employers can make the inevitability of a second wave less d...
Oct 20, 2020•32 min
