Episodes
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Gottfried Hirnschall is optimistic about ending the HIV epidemic
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
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 department for HIV and Hepatitis.
The intervening period, almost half the time we’ve been aware of the disease the fight against the infection has been characterised by scientific breakthroughs, and disappointments - but the people mobilised against the virus have changed the way the world funds global health, the way patients are included in research agendas, and saved lives.
Gottfried spoke to us during his post retirement holiday in France, and talked about his experiences, and what the legacy of HIV/AIDs will be.
Thursday Aug 08, 2019
Burnout - Don’t try to make the canary in the coal mine more resilient
Thursday Aug 08, 2019
Thursday Aug 08, 2019
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 it’s also a problem for our healthcare system. Burnout is associated with an increase in medical errors, and poor quality of care. Fundamentally it’s a patient safety issue.
But, unlike other patient safety issues we tend to think about it, and try to prevent it, at an individual not systems level.
However, Anthony Montgomery from the University of Macedonia, and Christina Maslach, from the University of California, Berkeley, urge us to start treating burnout as a systems issue. We hear about how we can spot burnout, and what can be done to try and mitigate it.
Read their full analysis
Burnout in healthcare: the case for organisational change
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4774
Friday Aug 02, 2019
Sustainable health
Friday Aug 02, 2019
Friday Aug 02, 2019
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 minds, it’s timely that we have two editorials on the sustainability and health.
Michael Depledge, emeritus professor of environment and human health at University of Exeter Medical School, and author of the editorial Time and Tide, explains how closely the oceans and seas are linked to human health.
Also Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive and director of health and social care at NICE has ideas about what the NHS can do to become more sustainable, and how we could evaluate the impact treatments have on the planet.
Read the two editorials
Time and tide - https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4671
A more sustainable NHS - https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4930
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Patient’s rights in research - moving beyond participation
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
At EBM live recently, we ran a workshop with researchers, patients and clinicians to talk about patient rights in research - should patients be setting the full research agenda? Should they be full participants and authors?
Helen Macdonald, BMJ’s UK research editor and co-host of our talk evidence podcast sat down to Paul Wicks, researcher and patient, and Emma Cartwright, The BMJ's What your patient is thinking editor, to reflect on what the workshop uncovered - and where we should be moving to next.
Read more about the BMJ's patient and public partnership: https://www.bmj.com/campaign/patient-partnership
Go to EBM live in Toronto in 2020
https://ebmlive.org/ebmlive-2020/
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome is a relatively newly recognised condition - but, according to one study, can account for up to 6% of patients presenting to emergency departments.
The causal mechanism is as yet unclear - but currently the only known way to prevent the syndrome is for the patient to stop their cannabis use.
Yaniv Chocron, chief resident at Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland talks us through spotting the condition, and what we think might be the mechanism of action.
Read the full easily missed article:
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4336
Wednesday Jul 17, 2019
Fighting bad science in Austria
Wednesday Jul 17, 2019
Wednesday Jul 17, 2019
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 glacier stone power cures hangovers.
Gerald Gartlehner, director of the Cochrane Austria Centre joins us to explain what they do, and how their evidence has been received.
Read more about the project (in German):
https://www.medizin-transparent.at/
Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Fertility awareness based methods for pregnancy prevention
Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Fertility awareness based methods of contraception are increasingly being used for pregnancy prevention. In the US, the proportion of contraceptive users who choose such methods has grown from 1% in 2008 to approximately 3% in 2014.
Relative to other methods of pregnancy prevention, however, substantial misinformation exists around fertility awareness based methods of contraception, particularly about the effectiveness of specific methods and how to use them.
Rachel Urrutia, assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the, University of North Carolina, and Chelsea Polis, senior research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute join us to describe the various fertility awareness based methods, and the evidence base behind all the options available.
Read the full clinical update
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4245
Wednesday Jul 10, 2019
Talk Evidence - smoking, gloves and transparency
Wednesday Jul 10, 2019
Wednesday Jul 10, 2019
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 smoking reduction) (11.40) and marvels at how pretty Richard Doll's seminal smoking paper is.
It's gloves off for infection control (22.20)
Andrew George, a non-executive director of the Health Research Authority joins us to talk about their consultation on research transparency, and explains how you can get involved (27.04)
And we talk about a new tool for rating the transparency of pharma companies (37.40)
Reading list:
Impact of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on global cigarette consumption
https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2287
Sixty seconds on . . . gloves off
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4498
HRA transparency consultation
https://www.hra.nhs.uk/about-us/consultations/make-it-public/our-vision-research-transparency/
Sharing of clinical trial data and results reporting practices among large pharmaceutical companies
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4217
Thursday Jul 04, 2019
Thursday Jul 04, 2019
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 Ignore the Obvious at our Peril".
In this podcast she talks about how culture, and groupthink, leads to a culture where whistleblowers are ignored, and why the NHS needs to change the way it treats people who try and call out poor care.
This was recorded at Risky Business - https://www.riskybusiness.events/ where you can find our more about the conference and watch previous talks.
Monday Jul 01, 2019
After Grenfell
Monday Jul 01, 2019
Monday Jul 01, 2019
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, thanks to the work of the fire brigade and health care.
In this podcast we hear from Andrew Roe, assistant commissioner at London Fire Brigade, and Anu Mitra, consultant emergency physician at St Mary's hospital - they talk about the support which has been provided, and where more needs to be done to help frontline staff cope with the horrors of the job.
The interviews were recorded at Risky Business - https://www.riskybusiness.events/ - where you can find out more about the Risk in healthcare.