Medicine and Science from The BMJ

Wellbeing - some advice for telehealth in secondary care

16 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve published info on Telehealth in primary care - and have been overwhelmed by the response from GPs who are finding it useful. But it’s not ...

Front line stories - How corona is changing acute care

14 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As we cover the covid-19 outbreak, we want to hear some of the stories from the frontline - And who better to heart of what this pandemic is doing to ...

Talk Evidence covid-19 update - hydroxy/chloroquinine, prognostic models and facemaskss

13 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For the next few months Talk Evidence is going to focus on the new corona virus pandemic. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the disea...

The public health response to covid - 19

12 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As part of our response to the covid-19 pandemic, we’re going to be running a series of discussions with experts about some of the big issues arisin...

Talk Evidence covid-19 update - pneumonia, guidelines, preprints and testing

09 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For the next few months Talk Evidence is going to focus on the new corona virus pandemic. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the diseas...

Wellbeing - Some advice on working in PPE

08 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Wellbeing might not seem the obvious place to talk about PPE - but lack of appropriate PPE is causing healthcare staff a great deal of stress now. Ma...

Look after yourself during covid-19

07 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Continuing our series on wellbeing during the pandemic, in this podcast we speak to Occupational Psychologist Roxane Gervais about how doctors can loo...

WHO’s response to covid-19

05 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We knew a pandemic was coming at some point - it’s kind of why we have the WHO. We have had various smaller scale tests of the international respons...

Talk Evidence covid-19 update - Confused symptoms, fatality rate uncertainty, Iceland’s testing

27 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For the next few months Talk Evidence is going to focus on the new corona virus pandemic. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the dise...

Organisational kindness during covid-19

26 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Reports from Italy, and more recently from the U.S. show the strain the healthcare system is under during this pandemic. We know that staff will ste...

Talk Evidence - testing under the microscope and opioid prescription

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This edition of talk evidence was recorded before the big increase in covid-19 infections in the UK, and then delayed by some self isolation. We'll be...

For a greener NHS - a call for evidence

14 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The NHS is a world leader in sustainable healthcare - and it's the staff who have have been leading the charge. The For A Greener NHS campaign is ask...

Cycling - Does the health benefit outweigh the accident risk (in the UK)

12 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We all know we should be doing more exercise, and one way to do that is by active commuting - journeying to work on foot or by bike. One thing preven...

Why we are failing patients with multimorbidity

05 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We know that the number of people living with multiple health conditions is rising year on year, and yet training, guidelines, organisations and physi...

Yvonne Coghill is trying to fix racism in the NHS

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this week's special episode of Sharp Scratch, we've got something a little different for you! Last week the panel talked microaggressions, so this ...

Born equal - the launch of The BMJ special issue on race in medicine

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Last week the BMJ published it’s first special edition into Racism in Medicine. The issues tacked ranged from differential attainment in medical sch...

Talk Evidence - Building an evidence base for covid-19

17 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We're taking a break from the usual Talk Evidence to focus on the new corona virus that has emerged in China. With a brand new disease, we have to bu...

David Williams - everyday discrimination is an independent predictor of mortality

13 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There comes a tipping point in all campaigns when the evidence is overwhelming and the only way to proceed is with action. According to David Williams...

Big Tan - Is the sunbed industry targeting research?

10 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2012, Eleni Linos, professor of dermatology at Stanford university, published a systematic review and meta-analysis of the link between non-melanom...

Writing a good outpatient letter means addressing it to the patient

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In many countries (including the UK and Australia) it is still common practice for hospital doctors to write letters to patients’ general practition...

QI and improvement are not synonyms

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In October 2019, Mary Dixon-Woods, director of the THIS Institute, dedicated to healthcare improvement. In that she explained how she believed healthc...

Prevalence and treatment of precocious puberty

28 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Precocious puberty, that is puberty that starts before age 8 in girls and 9 in boys seems to be on the rise, but whether that’s because of an increa...

Talk Evidence - Sepsis, talc and blindsided by blinding

22 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the festive talk evidence, giving you a little EBM to take you into the new year. As always Duncan Jarvies is joined by Helen Macdonald (re...

Surviving childhood cancer treatment

21 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a British cohort, 30% of patients who had survived childhood cancer had died within 45 years of diagnosis; only 6% were expected to have died. 51...

Is it possible to have fair pricing for medicines

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Is it possible to have a fair price for medicines? Yes, according to a new collection just published on bmj.com. The authors set out to evaluate how ...

Michael West - GMC Report On Wellbeing

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Michael West is professor of organisational psychology, at Lancaster University, and co-author of a new GMC report into the wellbeing of NHS staff. T...

From dance class to social prescription - starting and evaluating an idea

07 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you read the Christmas BMJ in the last few weeks, you might have noticed a lot around art and health - the way in which engagement in arts can help...

Editors pick of education in 2019

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re lucky enough to not be back at work, you might be feeling like you need to quickly refresh your medical knowledge - and this podcast the ...

Talk Xmas Evidence

31 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the festive talk evidence, giving you a little EBM to take you into the new year. As always Duncan Jarvies is joined by Helen Macdonald (r...

The need for (psychiatrists’) speed

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The internecine takes on medical specialty are a common thread in the Christmas BMJ, and this year we're doing it through the lens of driving. Which s...

Talking up your research - Sex makes a difference

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As editors, we feel like we’re spending a lot of time taking the superlatives out from articles - amazing, novel, important… But new research on B...

Talk Evidence - digital clubbing, osteoarthritis & sustainable EBM

16 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’re back for the December Talk Evidence, and this month we’re being very digital Firstly,(1.20) Helen tells us about arthritic fingers - should...

Talk Evidence - Talking about harms

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this special edition of talk evidence, Helen Macdonald and Carl Henneghan talk about creating an evidence base from harms. We hear from a member o...

Behind the campaign promises - Doctors in parliament

09 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The UK general election is happening this week, and you’ve probably made your mind up which MP you’re voting for already - and maybe the NHS has i...

Behind the campaign promises - what the NHS means for the election

05 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

UK general election has been called - polling day is on the 12th of December, and from now until then we’re going to be bringing you a weekly electi...

Behind the campaign promises - Health beyond the NHS

30 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A UK general election has been called - polling day is on the 12th of December, and from now until then we’re going to be bringing you a weekly elec...

Behind the campaign promises - Health and social care spending

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A UK general election has been called - polling day is on the 12th of December, and from now until then we’re going to be bringing you a weekly elec...

Behind the campaign promises - GP numbers, and appointment slots

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A UK general election has been called - polling day is on the 12th of December, and from now until then we’re going to be bringing you a weekly elec...

Reversing our preconceptions about where innovation comes from

14 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Reverse innovation may sound like some attempt to return to the dark ages - but it has a specific meaning, especially when it comes to med-tech. It’...

Talk Evidence - aggravating acronyms, a time to prescribe, and screening (again)

11 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Talk Evidence is back, with your monthly take on the world of EBM with Duncan Jarvies and GPs Carl Heneghan (also director for the Centre of Evidence ...

Creating a speak out culture

07 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Giving staff the confidence to speak out is important in healthcare - It's a key aspect of the WHO patient safety checklist, decreasing incidence of m...

Creating support for doctors in the NHS

05 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The NHS Practitioner Health Programme - once only for doctors in London, now it’s being rolled out across the NHS to provide the largest, publicly f...

Nudging the calories off your order

31 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There has been a lot of noise made about calorie counts on labels - the idea being it’s one of those things that might nudge people to make healthie...

Testing for TB is only skin deep

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A TB infection can take two forms, active and latent. Active disease is transmissible, and causes the damage to the lungs which makes TB one of the bi...

20 Arnav Agarwal

22 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Dr Arnav Agarwal joins Ray to share the perspective and experiences of a young, recently graduated doctor working in a busy, metropolitan h...

19 Marion Nestle

22 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Ray ventures into the notoriously complex field of nutrition with special guest, Professor Marion Nestle. Named by Forbes as one of the wor...

Statins for primary prevention - How good is the evidence

21 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Statins are now the most commonly used drug in the UK and one of the most commonly used medicines in the world, but debate remains about their use for...

Ancestry DNA tests can over or under estimate genetic disease risk

17 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Direct-to-consumer genetic tests are sold online and in shops as a way to “find out what your DNA says". They insights into ancestry or disease ri...

How Blockchain could improve clinical trial transparency

12 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Blockchain is the digital technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and has been proposed as the digital panacea of our times. But...

A new way to look at behaviour change in UK GPs

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In quality improvement, measurement is seen as a key driver of change - how well do you know you’re doing, if you can’t actually measure it. So, ...

17 Liam Mannix

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our latest series kicks off with Australia’s multi-award-winning health and science reporter, Liam Mannix. He joins Ray to share his insights into t...

Talk Evidence - eating less, drinking less, drug approval data

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Talk Evidence is back, with your monthly take on the world of EBM with Duncan Jarvies and GPs Carl Heneghan (also director for the Centre of Evidence ...

18 David Tovey

02 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After ten years at the helm of the Cochrane Library, Dr David Tovey recently stepped down as Editor-in-Chief. This week he joins Ray to reflect on Coc...

Minimum unit pricing in Scotland

26 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the 1st of May, 2018 Scotland was the first country to try a new way of reducing alcohol consumption in its population. It introduced a minimum uni...

Climate change will make universal health coverage precarious

24 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The BMJ in partnership with The Harvard Global Health Institute has launched a collection of articles exploring how to achieve effective universal ...

Talk Evidence - Recurrent VTE, CRP testing for COPD, CMO report, and a consultation

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Helen talks about new research on prevention of recurrent VTE - and Carl things the evidence goes further, and we can extend prophylaxis for a year. ...

Cancer drug trials used for regulatory approval are at risk of bias

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Around half of trials that supported new cancer drug approvals in Europe between 2014 and 2016 were judged to be at high risk of bias, in a new study....

Brexit - Planning for medicine shortages

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week we saw the release of the much awaited Yellowhammer documents from the government, documents which outline some of the risks involved with B...

Vaping deaths - does this change what we think about public health messages

12 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week the Trump administration has banned the sale of flavoured vapes in the USA. The reason for that is the sudden rash of cases of pulmonary di...

Extending the UK’s sugar tax to snacks

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK, for just over a year, we've been paying the "Soft Drinks Industry Levy" - a tax on sugary beverages intended to reduce our consumption of f...

The government is lacking detail over Brexit planning

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brexit. Who knows what’s going to happen in the next few weeks, months, years - the uncertainty is high. In the face of that, you’d hope that th...

Tackling burnout in The Netherlands

30 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We heard a few podcasts ago about burnout - what it is, and why it should be thought of as a systems issue. Now a project in the Netherlands is trying...

Physical activity and mortality - ”The least active quartile did less than 5 minute per day”

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We know that exercise is good for you - the WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic phys...

Talk Evidence - Tramadol, medical harm, and alexa

21 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome back to Talk Evidence - where Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan take you through what's happening in the world of Evidence. This month we'll...

Gottfried Hirnschall is optimistic about ending the HIV epidemic

15 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2001, Gottfried Hirnschall joined the WHO to work on the global response to HIV/AIDs, 18 years later he just retired as the director of WHO’s dep...

Burnout - Don’t try to make the canary in the coal mine more resilient

08 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Burnout is a problem in healthcare - it’s a problem for individuals, those who experience it and decide to leave a career they formerly loved, but i...

Sustainable health

02 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The UK has just seen it’s hottest July on record, including the highest ever temperature recorded. With climate change in the forefront of our mind...

Patient’s rights in research - moving beyond participation

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At EBM live recently, we ran a workshop with researchers, patients and clinicians to talk about patient rights in research - should patients be settin...

Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome is a relatively newly recognised condition - but, according to one study, can account for up to 6% of patients presen...

Fighting bad science in Austria

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Cochrane Austria have been asking the public what they'd like to know about health. Not whether the latest drug is more efficacious, but whether glaci...

Fertility awareness based methods for pregnancy prevention

13 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Fertility awareness based methods of contraception are increasingly being used for pregnancy prevention. In the US, the proportion of contraceptive u...

Talk Evidence - smoking, gloves and transparency

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This month we have some more feedback from our listeners (2.20) Carl says it's time to start smoking cessation (or stop the reduction in funding for ...

I have never encountered an organisation as vicious in its treatment of whistleblowers as the NHS

04 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Margaret Heffernan has thought a lot about whistleblowing, and why companies don't respond well to it. She wrote the "Book Wilful Blindness: Why We Ig...

After Grenfell

01 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's been just over two years since a fire broke out in Grenfell tower, in west London, claiming the lives of 72 residents. 223 people survived, thank...

Talk Evidence - Z drugs, subclinical hypothyroidism and Drazen’s dozen

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the podcast, (2.02) a listener asks, when we suggest something to stop, should we suggest an alternative instead? (8.24) Helen tells us ...

Did international accord on tobacco reduce smoking?

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros recently said “Since it came into force 13 years ago, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control remains one of th...

Working as a team, and combating stress, in space

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nicole Stott is an engineer, aquanaut and one of the 220 astronauts to have lived and worked on the International Space Station. In a confined space,...

Thoroughly and deliberately targeted; Doctors in Syria

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As Syria enters its ninth year of conflict, doctors are struggling to provide health care to a badly damaged country. While dealing with medicine sho...

Planning for the unplannable

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hi impact, low probability events are a planners nightmare. You know that you need to think about them, but how can you prioritise which event - terro...

What Matters To You Day

06 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's What Matters To You day - #wmty - and in this podcast Anya de Iongh, The BMJ's patient editor, and Joe Fraser, author of Joe's Diabetes who works...

Tech and the NHS - A tale of two cultures

03 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The NHS is about caring for people, free at the point of care, creating a safety net which catches the most vulnerable. Tech has been defined by the f...

Finding out who funds patient groups

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been banging the drum about transparency of payment to doctors for years - we’ve even put a moratorium on financial conflicts of interest in...

Talk Evidence - cancer causing food, prostate cancer and disease definitions

25 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan are back again talking about what's happened in the world of evidence this month. (1.05) Carl rants about bacon cau...

What caused the drop in stroke mortality in the UK

23 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Stroke mortality rates have been declining in almost every country, and that reduction could result from a decline in disease occurrence or a decline ...

Helping parents with children who display challenging behaviour

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Looking after a young child is hard enough, but when that child has learning difficulties and displays challenging behaviour - the burden on parents c...

Tackling gambling

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK we have a complex relationship with gambling, the government licences the national lottery, and uses profit from that to fund our art and mu...

The sex lives of married Brits

09 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles is a deep look into the sex lives of us brits - and has been running now for 30 years, giving ...

Doctors and extinction rebellion

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Starting in the middle of April, the group “Extinction Rebellion” have organised a series of non-violent direct action protests. Most notably brin...

Introducing Sharp Scratch - our new podcast for students and junior doctors

26 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Here's a taster for our new student podcast - Sharp Scratch. We're talking about the hidden curriculum, things you need to know to function as a docto...

Gypsy and Traveller health

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK, there's an ethnic group that is surprisingly large, but often overlooked by society, and formal healthcare services. The gypsy traveller co...

Could open access have unintended consequences?

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An “author pays” publishing model is the only fair way to make biomedical research findings accessible to all, say David Sanders, professor of gas...

Talk Evidence - health checks, abx courses and p-values

17 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan are back again talking about what's happened in the world of evidence this month. (1.20) Carl grinds his gears over...

Capital punishment, my sixth great grandfather, and me

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the 7th of June, 1753, Dr Archibald Cameron was executed at Tyburn. "The body, after hanging twenty minutes, was cut down: it was not quartered; bu...

How to have joy at work

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Perlo is the Director for Joy at Work at the Institute for Healthcare Improverment, and James Mountford is direct or of quality at the Royal F...

Social prescribing

04 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Non-medical interventions are increasingly being proposed to address wider determinants of health and to help patients improve health behaviours and b...

Applying new power in medicine

01 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Change requires the application of power - the way in which individuals can accrue power has shifted in our digitally connected world. Traditional wa...

Talk Evidence - Shoulders, statins and doctors messes

28 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Macdonald and Carl Heneghan are back again talking about what's happened in the world of evidence this month. They start by talking about shoul...

Is opt-out the best way to increase organ donation?

22 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As England’s presumed consent law for 2020 clears parliament, Veronica English, head of medical ethics and human rights at the BMA, say that eviden...

An acutely disturbed person in the community

21 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It can be difficult to know what to do when a person in severe psychological distress presents to a general practice or community clinic, particularly...

Passing on the secret knowledge of loop diuretics

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In every generation there are a few that know the secret; the counterintuitive effects of loop diuretics. In this podcast Steven Anisman, cardiologi...