Medicine and Science from The BMJ
Episodes
Treating the masses, overtreating the few
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the US, overly aggressive treatment is estimated to cause 30 000 deaths among Medicare recipients alone each year. Reporter Jeanne Lenzer has inves...
Bariatric surgery, neuromuscular blocking agents, and calcium in primary parahyperthyroidism
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Bariatric surgery is under scrutiny from NCEPOD, the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death, Ian Martin, NCEPOD's clinical co-or...
Smoking in Japan
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Deborah Cohen explains how a joint BMJ and Daily Telegraph investigation helped uncover problems with device regulation in Europe. Previous research h...
Fishy data
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Rajiv Chowdury, a research associate from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, explains why eating whole f...
The silent misdiagnosis
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Al Mulley, Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, and Tessa Richards, BMJ associate editor, discuss the silent misdiagnosis: th...
Countering counterfeits
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Last year 125 people died in Pakistan after taking contaminated cardiac medication. The disaster is one example of the dangers of counterfeit and subs...
Checking out the check-ups
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Lasse Krogsbøll, from the Nordic Cochrane Centre, explains research into whether general health checks improve mortality and morbidity in the populat...
Neonatal survival and Lifebox
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Macdonald, assistant editor at the BMJ, talks to Neil Marlow, professor of neonatal medicine at University College London, about his update to t...
Emergency oxygen use
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Is too much oxygen a good thing? Christine Roffe, consultant physician, Stoke Stroke Research Group, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust...
Non-coeliac but gluten sensitive?
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Many patients are following a wheat free diet, which they believe helps with their gastrointestinal symptoms, yet they don't exhibit markers of coelia...
Christmas 2012: The speed bump test
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We know that speed bumps have an important public health role, but a Christmas BMJ paper shows they're also clinically useful, and can help diagnose a...
Prison health
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The final article in the analysis series examining prison health in England and Wales is published this week. To sum up, Francis Crook, Director of th...
Deworming debunked
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You may well assume that a programme supported by organisations such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization does what it says on the tin....
The science of sugar
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The authors of the recent meta-analysis on dietary sugar and body weight, Lisa Te Morenga, and Jim Mann, from the Departments of Human Nutrition and M...
H7N9, and NHS standardised mortality rates
12 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
An epidemiological investigation on bmj.com discusses the first probable case of human to human transmission of novel avian influenza A (H7N9). The au...
American life
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health produced by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine of the Nation...
Screening and treating clinically localised prostate cancer
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this practice special podcast, Timothy Wilt, professor of medicine at Minneapolis VA Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research, explains how to ...
Treating early psychosis
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How can you treat a young person who is exhibiting the first signs of psychosis? Mabel Chew talks to Professor Tim Kendall a consultant psychiatrist a...
Mid Staffs inquiry, and digging for data
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Francis report into care standards at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust was published this week. Triggered by deaths at a hospital in England...
The future of primary care
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The BMJ held a round table in January 2013 to discuss the future of primary care in England and Wales. The wide ranging topics included out of hours c...
Start with the basics, food and fluid
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
How involved are doctors in the non medical aspects of patient care? An analysis on bmj.com this week examines the problem of nutrition and fluid bala...
Health in all policies
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Of the myriad of clinical decision support tools, what features actually improve patient outcomes? Pavel Romanov, medical student at Western Universit...
How do we put the compassion back into healthcare?: Full roundtable discussion
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the Francis report, the BMJ gathered experts to discuss compassion in the health service. This is the discussion in full. Taking part a...
Compassion and variation
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If patients living in one area have more diagnoses than those living in another, use more care, but have similar mortality rates, you would think they...
Witty words on data
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Witty is the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. He’s been credited with taking on a pharma company with a history of behaving badly in the past – as s...
After Francis, what next?
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded at the recent Nuffield health policy summit, this round table asks how to impliment the Francis reports recommendations. Taking part were: Ro...
Are all calories equal?
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Are all calories equal? Thermodynamics would say that energy is energy, be it derived from carbohydrate, fat, or protein. But things get more complica...
Carotid atherosclerosis and patient participation
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
A clinical review this week looks at the diagnosis and treatment of carotid atherosclerosis, including when to screen and the threshold for interventi...
All trials registered | All results reported
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The issues of hidden data are well known, and the BMJ’s open data campaign page documents some of the problems which have arisen as a result of clin...
Tackling hypertension in India
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The World Health Organization has chosen hypertension as the public health threat it will focus on for the next year. The problem is particularly pres...
Dealing with delirium
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Delirium is often missed in primary and secondary care. Edison Vidal, assistant professor in internal medicine at the Universidade Estadual Paulista, ...
Warts and all
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we discuss how Australia’s national human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme has caused a dramatic drop in genital warts. Does th...
Dying patients in hospital, e-patients online
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Patients are increasingly going online to find and discuss information about their condition. What are they getting on the web that they’re not gett...
Suspected heart failure
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Mabel Chew, practice editor at the BMJ, talks to Tushar Kotecha, a cardiology specialist registrar at Charing Cross Hospital in London, about when to ...
The BMJ Awards: Medical Team of the Year
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The BMJ Awards were held last Thursday. Fiona Godlee, the BMJ's editor in chief, announced that the Britain Nepal Otology Service (BRINOS) was named M...
Vulnerable adults, and the road to cycle safety
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In a drive to improve safety, many cyclists now wear helmets. But how useful is legislation that mandates their use when compared with all the other s...
Think then scan, don’t scan then think
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Until now, the increased risk of cancer from CT scans has been modelled from the data gathered from survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. ...
Corporations as vectors of disease
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This month the UK parliament has been looking at the big accountancy firms' involvement in drafting tax laws. Conversely, the Department of Health has...
Bias in clinical guidelines, and giving birth at home
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Despite repeated calls to prohibit or limit conflicts of interests among authors and sponsors of clinical guidelines, the problem persists. Jeanne Len...
Tackling violence against women
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the World Health Organisation called for healthcare providers to be more aware of intimate partner and sexual violence against women, calli...
NSAIDs update
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Recent research shows that some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs increase cardiovascular risk in some patients. Given their widespread use, and b...
Surgical outcome data
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Last week saw the start of a campaign to publish patient death rates for individual surgeons. Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS in England, tal...
Antibiotics in agriculture
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This week a head to head article asks: "Does adding routine antibiotics to animal feed pose a serious risk to human health? The authors David Wallinga...
Dying at home
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we look at how to help patients have better deaths at home. BMJ assistant editor Sophie Cook talks to Emily Collis, a consultant in palliat...
Lost in transfusion?
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Blood transfusion is an essential part of modern healthcare and can be lifesaving when used appropriately. In this podcast, Sophie Cook, The BMJ's cli...
Plain Packaging
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Plain packaging on tobacco products is the latest strategy aimed at reducing smoking. Campaigners had hoped the UK would follow Australia’s example....