Medicine and Science from The BMJ
Episodes
Europe’s impending syrup tsunami
29 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 U...
Mark Britnell - You have to value your workforce
22 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“The people of the UK are right to treasure their NHS,” writes Mark Britnell in his new book In Search of the Perfect Health System (Palgrave Macm...
The junior doctor protest
21 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of NHS staff have demonstrated against the government’s threatened “imposition” of an “unsafe and unfair” contract for junior doct...
Are new diabetes drugs approved too easily?
19 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Given the number of effective treatments for type II diabetes, which have good evidence about safety and efficacy, should any new drugs for the condit...
Is place of death important to patients?
12 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The current orthodoxy is that home is the best and preferred place of death for most people, but in this podcast, Kristian Pollock a sociologist from ...
Why do the Scottish do fewer knee arthroscopies?
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The “correct” rates of discretional interventions are difficult to define. However, David Hamilton and Colin Howie point out that discrepancies in...
Cardiac rehab
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
With improved survival and and ageing population, the number of people living with coronary heart disease in the UK has increased to an estimated 2.3 ...
What it’s like to receive cardiac rehabilitation
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
With improved survival and and ageing population, the number of people living with coronary heart disease in the UK has increased to an estimated 2.3 ...
How scientific are US dietary guidelines?
25 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 d...
Dengue fever
24 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Around two fifths of the world’s population (those in tropical and subtropical countries), or up to 2.5 billion people, are at risk of dengue infect...
They drained 92L from me - diagnosis and management of pleural effusion
10 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
Being diagnosed with ovarian cancer
09 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ovarian cancer is the 7th most common cancer in women world wide, and 5 year survival continues to remain low - in the UK this has been attributed to ...
Diagnosing ovarian cancer
08 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ovarian cancer is the 7th most common cancer in women world wide, and 5 year survival continues to remain low - in the UK this has been attributed to...
A research agenda for medical overuse
02 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Although overuse in medicine is gaining increased attention, many questions remain unanswered. At the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference in Washing...
Diagnosis and treatment of hepatic encephalopathy
14 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Hepatic encephalopathy constitutes a spectrum of neuropsychiatric abnormalities, beginning with subtle psychomotor changes and progressing to confusio...
Open Doors For Sex Workers
14 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Following on from the clinical review "Caring for sex workers", we spoke to the team at Open Doors, a sex worker outreach clinic in east London, run f...
Sex worker health
10 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sex workers are unique population with specific health needs, caring for them can present non-specialists with a challenge, and there are important he...
The system can abuse older people too
24 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Elder abuse is often the result of the organisation of health systems rather than the fault of individuals, argue Jolanda Lindenberg and Rudi Westendo...
Tackling racism in the NHS
23 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For decades research has shown that discrimination, harassment, and exclusion are pervasive experiences for staff from black and minority ethnic (BME)...
Should doctors recommend homeopathy?
14 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A recent review by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council concluded that “there are no health conditions for which there is rel...
Rheumatic fever - diagnosis and treatment
14 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Many doctors may believe that acute rheumatic fever is a disease of the past, but it's estimated that, worldwide, there are 500,000 new annual cases, ...
Tarnished GOLD - diagnosing COPD
13 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3021 The prevalence and mortality of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is incr...
GI bleeding, slow to diagnose, slow to treat
03 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) has been examining the treatment of acute GI bleeds in England's NHS. Two o...
The trials and tribulations of peer review
30 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Bias and peer review are of universal importance to all those that produce scholarly work. Fiona Godlee and Rob Tarr, editors in chief of The BMJ and...
How GPs can help carers looking after patients with
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
By 2050 an estimated 135 million people worldwide will have dementia. Of all chronic diseases, dementia is one of the most important contributors to d...
Time to target older women for cervical cancer screening?
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cervical screening programmes in many countries stop at around the age of 65 and much of the focus is often on younger women. However, comparatively l...
Diagnosis and management of dementia
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
By 2050 an estimated 135 million people worldwide will have dementia. However, increasing evidence showing that dementia may be preventable. In this ...
QOF, what is it good for?
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Martin McShane, medical director of long term conditions at NHS England, questions the validity of the Quality and Outcomes Framework and suggests how...
Rethinking caesarean delivery
12 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Caesarean delivery can improve maternal and child health, and even save lives. But recent research points to latent risks for chronic disease: childre...
Methodological gloss won’t fix a rubbish evidence base
11 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Information on the effectiveness and safety of healthcare should be valid, precise, up to date, clear, and freely available. Currently none of these c...
They want to say something on health . . . so what can you fish up?
03 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Glaziers and Window Breakers: the Role of the Secretary of State for Health in Their Own Words, published by the Health Foundation, Nicholas Timmin...
bmj.com at 20
22 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The BMJ website is 20 years old this week - the first general medical journal online. Launch editor Tony Delamothe discusses with fellow digital pione...
The BMJ requires data sharing on request for all trials
22 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The movement to make data from clinical trials widely accessible has achieved enormous success, and it is now time for medical journals to play their ...
ADHD in childhood - diagnosis
21 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, presents with persistent symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity causing impairment...
ADHD in childhood - treatment
21 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, presents with persistent symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity causing impairment...
Speech difficulties in preschool children
15 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Speech and language therapists Cristina McKean and Angela Morgan join us to discuss their clinical review "Identifying and managing common childhood l...
Infectious mononucleosis FAQs
29 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Lennon, a specialist registrar at University Hospital Limerick, and Michael Crotty, general practitioner from the Synergy Medical Clinic in Cana...
The health debate - the analysis
23 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Management of a multiple sclerosis relapse
16 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Nicki Ward-Abel, a lecturer practitioner in MS at Birmingham City University, joins us to explain how to treat patients who are experiencing a relapse...
Health apps for well people - problematic or panacea?
15 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Some apps have the potential to encourage healthier habits and are accessible to most people, argues Iltifat Husain, but Des Spence notes the lack of ...
Foodbanks - is supply or demand increasing their usage
09 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors are witnessing increasing numbers of patients seeking referrals to food banks in the United Kingdom. Rachel Loopstra, a post-doctoral research...
How to talk to a patient about delusional infestation
02 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Lepping, consultant psychiatrist and honorary professor at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in North Wales, joins us to discuss his exper...
Withdraw the interim report on the UK’s billion unit pledge
26 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Flaws in the Department of Health’s interim evaluation of an alcohol industry pledge to remove one billion alcohol units from the market raise quest...
Preventing sudden cardiac death in athletes
20 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sudden cardiac death in athletes aged less than 35 years is the leading cause of medical death in this subgroup, with an estimated incidence of 1 in 5...
Trigeminal neuralgia - the evidence base for medical and surgical treatments
18 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A BMJ Clinical Evidence systematic overview looks at the evidence for medical and surgical treatments of trigeminal neuralgia, and the uncertainties t...
Thrombolysis in acute ischaemic stroke - time for a rethink?
18 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Chris Moulton A and E - patients are usually justified in presenting as an emergency
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Moulton is VP of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and an A&E consultant in the Royal Bolton Hospital. He believes that the majority of p...
Patrick Keating GP - under pressure to increase list size
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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. Th...
Obioma Ezekobe GP - patients need to be educated about resources
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Obioma Ezekobe is a GP in an urgent care centre in Central Middlesex Hospital. She believes that the public need to be educated about the use of NHS...
Katherine Henderson A and E consultant - lack of ward beds is hitting A and E the hardest
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Henderson is the clinical lead of the emergency department at St Thomas's hospital in London. She worries that lack of ward space is having...
Has the balance of screening for AAA tipped towards harm?
06 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are usually asymptomatic until they rupture, which is fatal in more than 80% of cases. Screening aims to detect the ...
Nuffield summit - Ashish Jha explains Acountable Care Organisations
05 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ashish Jha, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, talking about how the Affordable Care Act has fostered new m...
Nuffield summit - Bastiaan Bloem on parkinsons.net
05 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Bastiaan Bloem, consultant neurologist at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Netherlands, discussing his revolutionary approach to patient ce...
How to diagnose overdiagnosis
05 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Overdiagnosis means different things to different people. Stacy Carter, associate professor at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine a...
Overdiagnosis in breast cancer - 45 years to become a mainstream idea
04 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast Alexandra Barratt, professor of public health at the University of Sydney, discusses how questions about overdiagnosis in breast cance...
Roundtable: Hopes for the NHS, the election and beyond
27 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The BMJ held a breakfast roundtable at the annual health policy summit held by the Nuffield Trust think tank to explore some of the key policy discuss...
Assessment and management of alcohol use disorders
19 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As the level of alcohol consumption goes up, so the risk of physical, psychological, and social problems increases. In this podcast we’re joined b...
Jackie Applebee GP - the funding formula is hurting deprived practices
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jackie Applebee is a GP in Tower Hamlets in London, and is concerned that the way the GP funding formula is working doesn't take account of the earlie...
Mark Folman GP - time pressure and patient care
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Folman, a GP in Nottinghamshire, is concerned that more and more work, with more and more patients, means less time with those who really need hi...
Michelle Sinclair GP - surgery buildings are not up to scratch
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
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 ca...
Patient spotlight - How can we get better at providing patient centred care?
10 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Participants in our discussion on person centred care in January agreed that a change in culture and better use of technology could benefit both patie...
Patient spotlight - Doing it for themselves
10 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In our accompanying roundtable discussion,we hear views from a group of patients and clinicians based largely in the UK on the actions required to ...
International donations to the Ebola virus outbreak: too little, too late?
04 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Karen Grépin, assistant professor of global health policy at New York University, has been examining the pledges made by the international community ...
Helping Eddie Redmayne play Stephen Hawking
03 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Katie Sidle is a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London. She helped actor Eddie Redmayne in his por...
Management of cancer induced bone pain
30 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Bone pain is the most common type of pain from cancer and is present in around one third of patients with bone metastases, currently, improvements in ...
Cash for referrals
29 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Private hospital chains have been “buying” referrals by offering clinicians lucrative packages, including free facilities in sought after location...
Managing multimorbidity in primary care
23 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Multimorbidity presents a number of different challenges, for the patients living with the conditions, but also for the health professionals caring fo...
WHO needs exercise?
22 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Philipe de Souto Barreto argues that, to reduce premature mortality, policies should focus on getting fully inactive people to do a little physical ac...
Dominique Thompson GP - Young people’s health is overlooked
19 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Dominique Thompson, GP and director of the Students’ Health Service at the University of Bristol, is concerned that young people's health is being n...
Rabies in animals
16 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rabies is the archytypical zoonotic disease, and only by vaccination in animals will we prevent infections in people. In two podcasts linked to our la...
Rabies in humans
16 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rabies is the archytypical zoonotic disease, and only by vaccination in animals will we prevent infections in people. In two podcasts linked to our la...
Is the Hep C screening expansion justified?
14 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Until recently, hepatitis C screening was offered to people at increased risk of infection - such as intravenous drug users - but now, the US Centers ...
Being a human guinea pig
08 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Drug development happens in stages – pre-clinical, phase I, II, III, and so on. But how much do trial participants know about what has happened bef...
Operating theatre time, where does it all go?
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Waiting times in theatre can be a source of friction – but is the delay due to mandatory anaesthetic faff around time (MAFAT), or AWOL surgeons? E...
Grumpy old doctors
18 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Those who rise to the top in medicine see themselves as hardworking extroverts with a caring nature, suggests an unscientific analysis of the answers ...
Can you trust the advice of TV doctors?
17 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
How much can you trust the advice given by TV doctors? A new research paper on thebmj.com has analysed over 40 episodes of popular American TV shows, ...
Turning back the tide of appointments
16 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In AD 1028 King Canute tried to command the tide to turn back. History records that the king of all lands surrounding the North Sea got very cross, we...
Men are idiots
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Winners of the Darwin Award must eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an idiotic manner that their action ensures one less idiot will survi...
Musical (operating) theatre
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
One hundred years ago, Pennsylvanian surgeon Evan Kane penned a brief letter to JAMA in which he declared himself a rigorous proponent of the “benef...
Great leap backwards - austerity measures are hitting the vulnerable hardest
10 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The UK’s austerity programme has disproportionately affected children and people with disabilities, says David Taylor-Robinson, a senior clinical le...
Too much blood: when transfusions do more harm than good
05 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Blood transfusions have been identified as one of the most overused therapies both in the United States and the UK. In this podcast Lawrence Tim Goo...
Zero tolerance for competing interests
04 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The BMJ has a new policy on competing interestings - from 2015 we will have zero tolerance for them in authors who write education articles or editori...
Simon Stevens - saving the NHS?
02 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Eight months into the NHS’s top job, Simon Stevens’s intelligent refusal to enforce a “one size fits all” solution on the service’s ills is,...
Self monitoring of hypertension in pregnancy
20 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Guidelines encourage the use of self monitoring of blood pressure in pregnancy, and research suggests that women prefer it. But Richard McManus, GP an...
Crohn’s disease - a patient’s perspective
20 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The incidence and prevalence of Crohn’s disease is increasing worldwide, and a clinical review on thebmj.com provides a practical approach to the di...
The diagnosis and management of Menieres disease
13 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
A clinical review on thebmj.com looks at Meniere’s disease. One of the review's authors, Jonny Harcourt, a consultant otologist at Charing Cross Hos...
Menieres disease - a patient perspective
13 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
A clinical review on thebmj.com looks at Meniere's disease. Corine from The Netherlands discusses her experience of having the disease and explains ho...
Should we still be using hydroxyethyl starch?
11 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Large trials show that hydroxyethyl starch increases the risk of death, kidney injury, and bleeding. So why does the European Medicines Agency still a...
Atul Gawande - It’s about having a good life not a good death
07 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Surgeon, writer, and researcher, Atul Gawande is best known for the development of surgical checklists, but the death of his father has inspired him t...
It’s time to change surgical training in the UK
31 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In a GMC survey last year, the UK’s surgical trainees came bottom of the list when it came to satisfaction about their training. Today, Craig McIl...
Update on malaria - new technologies helping to tackle the disease
24 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré is the executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. In this podcast, she updates us on recent successes in the glob...
Fighting on many fronts - how tackling ebola is effecting other diseases
24 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré is the executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and has just returned from Sierra Leone and Guinea. In this pod...
The blockbuster sex drug for women; creating a feminist issue
16 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
A thrice failed antidepressant is at the centre of a new marketing campaign to win approval for what could become the world’s first blockbuster sex ...
”Death is not inevitable”; why society’s beliefs fuel overtreatment
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our whole society views risk in medicine wrongly, argue Jerome Hoffman and Hemal Kanzaria from the University of California Los Angeles. In this podca...
Is NHS England being whittled down to a core service?
09 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Allyson Pollock, professor of global health, and Peter Roderick, a barrister and senior research fellow, both at Queen Mary University of London, argu...
How to manage cerebral palsy in children
29 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cerebral palsy is a clinical diagnosis, which describes a wide spectrum of neurological disability – all as a result of some sort of trauma to the d...
Are we overmedicalising global health?
26 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jocalyn Clarke, executive editor at icdd,b, argues the solutions proposed to improve global health are too focused on the medical, and fail to tackle ...
Listen to patients, how Radboud UMC changed quality and care
25 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2006 one of the largest hospitals in the Netherlands hit the national headlines with the exposure of “scandalously” poor results for card...
How not to miss kawasaki disease
19 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Kawasaki Disease presents as fever and rash, which makes diagnosis difficult. In this podcast, Anthony Harnden, professor of primary care at the Uni...
Risky Business - Kevin Fong - learning too much from aviation?
18 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Is medicine trying to learn too much from aviation? Kevin Fong, consultant anaesthetist at UCLH is currently working with Kent, Surrey and Sussex air...