Helen Salisbury: Plan your emergency
When I first read about plans to ask patients to book ahead at emergency departments,…
Category: British Medical Journal
Covid-19: Experts divide into two camps of action—shielding versus blanket policies
Two open letters sent to the UK’s four chief medical officers signal the polarisation of…
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Why have we been slow to act on air pollution as a public health issue?
Holst and colleagues discuss the asthma risk to children of being exposed to fine particular…
Covid-19: Act now to avoid second lockdown, says Independent SAGE
The Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has published an emergency 10 point plan to…
Covid-19 in the workplace
Faced with a novel lethal virus, employers have struggled to implement their legal duty to…
Covid-19: What’s in a name? Isolating the term “quarantine” from other contamination
Although “quarantine” and “self-isolation” involve similar measures,1 their purposes are quite different. The World Health…
Safely returning clinically vulnerable people to work
The covid-19 pandemic has seen record numbers of people off work. With lockdown eased, the…
Covid-19: What’s going wrong with testing in the UK?
How big is the problem?The UK’s community testing system for covid-19 seems to be under…
Studying medicine affected my mental health—here’s what I learnt
In medical school, while acquiring the knowledge I would need to be a doctor, I…
Covid-19: Government must learn lessons from deaths before winter, say MPs and peers
The UK government should immediately organise a quick interim review into deaths from covid-19 to…
Sixty seconds on . . . circuit break
Is this a physics lesson?No, it’s just the government’s latest covid-19 buzz phrase. “Circuit break”…
Growth concerns in the early weeks of life
What you need to know One in 10 breastfed babies loses more than 10% of…
Bringing drug production home: how the US is rebuilding the drug supply chain after covid-19
“The problem is simply that, across the world, we have sweatshop labor, we have pollution…
Emerging immunotherapies in multiple myeloma
ABSTRACTDespite considerable advances in treatment approaches in the past two decades, multiple myeloma remains an…
From ceramics to skin: how art led to a career in dermatology
Minal Singh describes her career in dermatology as someone else’s fault. “I completed a two…
Covid-19: Point of care test reports 94% sensitivity and 100% specificity compared with laboratory test
A point of care covid-19 test—which the UK government plans to roll out across the…
Covid-19: Minorities account for 78% of US deaths in under 21s, says CDC
The first US government review of covid-19 deaths in people aged under 211 has found…
Assisted dying: doctors challenge RCGP’s “irrational” interpretation of poll
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has been threatened with legal proceedings unless it…
Covid-19 communication: planning ahead to help inpatients when key contacts can’t be present
We thank Gray and Back for their article on communication and covid-19.1 Conversations in our…
Let’s stop talking about covid-safe and covid-secure—it’s covid-mitigated
We have been in countless meetings that have included discussions about making the workplace covid-secure…
Covid-19: Testing service wasn’t prepared for increased demand, chief admits
England’s NHS Test and Trace service wasn’t prepared for the increased demand that has seen…
Uruguay is winning against covid-19. This is how
Latin America continues to suffer some of the worst tolls of covid-19, with over seven…
Private patient care in NHS hospitals: an opportunity for improved governance
The 2012 Health and Social Care Act was the largest ever reorganisation of the English…
Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and other leaders win Ig Nobel awards for teaching people about life and death
Politicians are better than doctors or scientists at medical education. Leaders such as Donald Trump,…
Covid-19: Universal screening is likely to miss infected people, review finds
One time screening for SARS-CoV-2 in apparently healthy people is likely to miss those who…
Rising numbers of positive covid-19 tests in the UK
The covid-19 pandemic has shaken the world. In addition to the direct consequences of the…
Blatant disregard to proper consent continues in screening programmes
Haskell tells us that the Cumberlege report found that the healthcare system was “disjointed, siloed,…
Do many people have pre-existing immunity to covid-19?
Even in local areas that have experienced some of the greatest rises in excess deaths…
A few tiny steps towards transparency: how the Sunshine Act shone light on industry’s influence in medicine
About 10 years ago President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. It included a…
Surgery during covid-19: co-producing patient resources
Mary Venn: Covid-19 research changing the pace in patient engagementCovidSurg is an international collaborative of…
Covid-19: Flying before we can walk
In the week since The BMJ broke the story about the government’s Operation Moonshot plans…
Computerised clinical decision support systems and absolute improvements in care: meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials
AbstractObjectiveTo report the improvements achieved with clinical decision support systems and examine the heterogeneity from…
Anti-epileptic drugs in fathers . . . and other stories
Paternal exposure to anti-epileptic drugsMaternal exposure to anti-epileptic drugs during pregnancy carries a risk of…
How effective are clinical decision support systems?
The linked meta-analysis (doi:10.1136/bmj.m3216) by Kwan and colleagues of 122 trials of clinical decision support…
Paying GP clinics to provide contraceptive advice is linked to fewer abortions, study finds
A scheme that paid general practices to offer information on long acting contraceptives (LARCs), such…
“Mass hysterectomies” were carried out on migrants in US detention centre, claims whistleblower
Detainees held in an immigration centre in the US have been subjected to potentially unnecessary…
Covid 19: Science must come first with vaccine, says former CDC chief
A former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called for…
Cumberlege review: It’s not only drugs and medical devices that can cause harm
The recent Cumberlege report, First Do No Harm,12 does not consider potential harms to patients…
Hierarchical communication: a good referral can come from any grade of doctor
Feature, 8-15 AugustAlthough I have no formal conflicts of interest, I am the co-creator of…
Shantakumar Dnyaneshwar Bhandarkar
bmj;370/sep16_10/m3613/FAF1faShantakumar Dnyaneshwar Bhandarkar was a pioneer endocrinologist, devoted physician, inquisitive scientist-researcher, and a passionate teacher….
Doctors call for action on racism in wake of covid-19 and death of George Floyd
The UK government has a “moral imperative” to take firm action against racism and health…
UK trade deal with US must not lead to drug price rises, say doctors
The BMA must work to ensure that any future trade deal between the UK and…
Covid-19: Reward healthcare staff for pandemic work, says BMA
Doctors and healthcare staff who have worked during the covid-19 pandemic should be rewarded to…
Opportunistic screening versus usual care for detection of atrial fibrillation in primary care: cluster randomised controlled trial
AbstractObjectiveTo investigate whether opportunistic screening in primary care increases the detection of atrial fibrillation compared…
David Oliver: Covid-19 has shown the value of local and clinical NHS leadership
What does our initial response to the pandemic teach us about the balance, and future…
Multiple pigmented papules on the vulva
This picture (fig 1) shows bowenoid papulosis caused by infection with human papillomavirus.The patient was…
An annular plaque on the hand
A 41 year old man presented with a five month history of a painless, non-pruritic…
Operation Moonshot: Leaked documents prompt questions over cost, evidence, and reliance on private sector
What is Operation Moonshot?It refers to the government’s plan to deliver a mass population testing…
Operation Moonshot: Testing plan relies on technology that does not exist
Delivering mass testing on the scale and level of ambition set by the UK prime…
Deryk Anthony Lawrence
bmj;370/sep15_21/m3527/FAF1faDeryk Anthony Lawrence was a kind thoughtful and gentle man with a keen sense of…