Medicine and Science from The BMJ

Atul Gawande - It’s about having a good life not a good death

Surgeon, writer, and researcher, Atul Gawande is best known for the development of surgical checklists, but the death of his father has inspired him to write his latest book exploring medical and societal attitudes to death.
We joined him for breakfast during his whistle stop tour of the UK recording this year's BBC Reith Lectures, to discuss Being Mortal.

It’s time to change surgical training in the UK

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 McIlhenny, Director of the faculty of surgical training at the Royal college of surgeons of Edinburgh has released a report with a series of recommendations to improve standards of training, and he hopes, help it come inline with the European Working Time Directive
Read his full report
http://goo.gl/kH55lW

Update on malaria - new technologies helping to tackle the disease

Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré is the executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. In this podcast, she updates us on recent successes in the global effort to control the disease. A second podcast examines the effect of the current ebola outbreak on the prevention and treatment of malaria, and other diseases, in affected regions.

Fighting on many fronts - how tackling ebola is effecting other diseases

Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré is the executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and has just returned from Sierra Leone and Guinea. In this podcast, she describes the effect of the west African ebola outbreak on the prevention and treatment of malaria, and other diseases, in affected regions. In an earlier podcast, Dr Nafo examined recent successes in the global effort to control malaria.

The blockbuster sex drug for women; creating a feminist issue

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 pill for women. Frustrated by the drug’s repeated rejection, proponents have orchestrated a fierce attack, accusing the regulator of unfairness, and enlisting support from several well connected women’s organisations in the US.
Critics counter that the campaign is exceedingly misleading, that it targets a desire disorder that does not exist, and that approval could see widespread overprescribing of a drug with marginal benefits and real safety concerns.
Ray Moynihan has investigated for The BMJ, and talks to Rebecca Coombes about the way this publicity campaign has been orchestrated.
Read the full feature:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6246

”Death is not inevitable”; why society’s beliefs fuel overtreatment

Our whole society views risk in medicine wrongly, argue Jerome Hoffman and Hemal Kanzaria from the University of California Los Angeles. In this podcast they slay some strongly held myths about medicine's ability to heal, and say that one of our big beliefs, that death is not inevitable, is leading to overtreatment.
Read their full analysis of the situation:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5702
For more information about overdiagnosis and overtreatment, visit www.bmj.com/too-much-medicine

Is NHS England being whittled down to a core service?

Allyson Pollock, professor of global health, and Peter Roderick, a barrister and senior research fellow, both at Queen Mary University of London, argue that, through various mechanisms in the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the NHS in England could be turned into a small core service. For full healthcare coverage, will we have to turn to commercial medicine?
Read their analysis article:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5603
The NHS Reinstatement Bill Campaign:
http://www.nhsbill2015.org/

How to manage cerebral palsy in children

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 developing brain, either pre or post natally.
Neil Wimalasundera, a consultant in paediatric neurodisability at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and one of the authors of The BMJ clinical review discusses how to diagnose and manage cerebral palsy in children.
Read the full clinical review:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5474

Are we overmedicalising global health?

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 the underlying socioeconomic factors which will undermine those efforts.
Read her full analysis of the situation:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5457

Listen to patients, how Radboud UMC changed quality and care

In April 2006 one of the largest hospitals in the Netherlands hit the national headlines with the exposure of “scandalously” poor results for cardiac surgery.
Melvin Samsom, CEO of the hospital, explains how the high death rates galvanised quality improvement and innovative change, transforming it into a model for patient participation.
Read more about the transformation at:
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5765