Medicine and Science from The BMJ

With the future of the Health and Social Care bill more certain, how will the health service react to the legislative changes? At this year's Nuffield Trust Health Policy Summit, the BMJ's editor Fiona Godlee hosted a round table to discuss this question. Taking part were: David Bennett, Chairman and CEO, Monitor Paul Corrigan, Management consultant, Southside Penny Dash, McKinseys Nigel Edwards,...

Dan Chisholm, a health economist with the World Health Organisation talks to Harriet Vickers about a cluster of articles which examines the more cost effective way to tackle non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia.

Is elective ventilation an acceptable way to increase organs available for transplant? Duncan Jarvies discusses the ethics with Dominic Wilkinson (associate professor of neonatal medicine and bioethics, and consultant neonatologist, at the University of Adelaide). And Harriet Vickers talks to Iona Heath (president of the Royal College of General Practitioners) and David Haslam (president of the Br...

A new peer led parenting group is having success in South London, we visit a session to find out why. Also Jane Driver, an associate professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, explains how Alzheimer's disease and cancer maybe opposite sides of the same coin.

Indhu Prabakar, a subspecialty registrar in sexual and reproductive health at Abacus Services for Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare in Liverpool, goes through the options for emergency contraception. Tim Coleman, a professor of primary care at the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, University of Nottingham, explains his research on methods to help smokers quit.

Eithne MacMahon, consultant and honorary senior lecturer at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, explains how to test and treat a pregnant woman exposed to a child with a rash. Sverre Bergh, a researcher at the Centre for Old Age Psychiatric Research, Sanderud Hospital in Norway, discusses the results of his research into stopping SSRIs in dementia pati...

Hopes are high that the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics will have a lasting sports and exercise legacy, but the work done to ensure the health of the millions of attendees could also have an important impact. Harriet Vickers talks to Brian McCloskey, the Health Protection Agency’s national Olympics and Paralympics lead, about how infectious diseases will be monitored and controlled during the games,...

This week we’re concentrating on the problem of an overactive bladder, the subject of a cluster of articles in this week’s BMJ. Practice editor Mabel Chew is joined by Linda Cardozo, professor of urogynaecology, and Dudley Robinson, consultant urogynaecologist, both from King’s College Hospital, London.

The focus of this week’s programme is health promotion and behaviour change. Joining Karim Khan, BJSM editor, and Domhnall McAuley, BMJ primary care editor, is Mike Evans, associate professor of family medicine at the University of Toronto and founder of the Health Design Lab. Dan Heath, senior fellow at Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, and co-author of a bo...

SPARX is a new cognitive behavioural therapy based computer game for young people with depression. Sally Merry, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Auckland, joins us to explain how it was created. Also this week Christine Jenkins, thoracic physician at Concord Hospital in Sydney, gives Mabel Chew a masterclass in spirometry.

BMJ deputy editor Trish Groves talks to Bianca Hemmingsen, a PhD student at Copenhagen University Hospital, about research comparing metformin and insulin with insulin alone, for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Also, Dan Lasserson, a senior clinical researcher at the University of Oxford, tells BMJ practice editor Mabel Chew how late onset type 1 diabetes can be easily missed.

BMJ features editor Rebecca Coombes finds out more about a new pneumococcal vaccine being rolled out in Ghana. And David Payne meets Kenneth Kizer, the US doctor who transformed the failing Veteran’s Health Administration and took on the tobacco industry in California.

Paul Offit, the author of the yes side of our head to head article "Should childhood vaccination be mandatory", joins us to discuss his book Deadly Choices: How the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all, and explains why he thinks it is wrong to refuse to accept patients who haven't been vaccinated. Also, in the month when UK prime minister David Cameron said dementia care is a “national crisis”...

It's the first time doctors have been polled for strike action since 1975, and we've heard a lot about the moral arguments of doing so, but what about the practicalities? Edward Davies, BMJ Careers editor, talked to Mark Porter, chair of the BMA's consultant committee, about how he thinks doctors can balance industrial action and patient safety. Also this week, Richard Hurley finds out why Sam Shu...

In this weeks podcast BMJ features editor Rebecca Coombes reports from Risky Business, the patient safety conference held in London last week. She talks to Loretta Evans, a mother who lost her son because of medical negligence, and about her fight to receive an apology from the hospital. Dr Liliane Field, medicolegal adviser at the Medical Protection Society, talks about the importance of a genuin...

Keith Fox, president of the British Cardiovascular Society, and Rory Collins, co-director of the University of Oxford's Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, discuss the safety of statins, and how clever prescribing can overcome worries about myopathy. Also this week, Tony Delamothe, BMJ deputy editor, explains why the sudden interest in atrial fibrillation is making him qu...

This week we look at herpes simplex encephalitis, an easily missed central nervous system infection which can have serious consequences. Our practice editor Mabel Chew discusses the features of the illness with Tom Solomon, professor of neurological science at Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool. And podcast producer Duncan Jarvies gets advice on diagnosis from Adam Zeman, professor of c...

For the last year a group commissioned by the UK government has been looking at whether making all published research freely available is attainable or not. BMJ editor Fiona Godlee speaks to Dame Janet Finch, the group's chair, about its conclusions. We also bring you highlights from a BMJ hosted round table on what the landscape of research publishing could, and should, look like in the future.

With changes to the NHS such as cuts, competition and tendering, secondary care will need to adapt. Joining BMJ features editor Rebecca Coombes to discuss how, are: Yi Mien Koh, chief executive of Whittington Health, London Jan Filochowski, chief executive of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust Fergus Gleeson, divisional director of Critical Care, Theatres, Diagnostics and Pharmacy at Oxford Un...

The healthcare landscape in the England is shifting, with cuts, competition and tendering some of the major changes. Secondary care must adapt to these, but how? Joining BMJ features editor Rebecca Coombes to discuss the issues are: Yi Mien Koh, chief executive of Whittington Health, London Jan Filochowski, chief executive of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust Fergus Gleeson, divisional direct...

Barack Obama saw his Affordable Care Act remain law last week, as the US Supreme Court ruled it is constitutional. Ed Davies (BMJ US news and features editor) talks to Janice Hopkins Tanne (freelance journalist based in New York) about the ruling’s implications. And what are the options for tackling childhood obesity? Li Ming Wen (research and evaluation manager at Sydney University) believes inte...

It seems the race to implement telehealth is on – the UK government’s response to its Whole System Demonstrator pilot has been very positive. But has it been over-hyped? We find out from Jennifer Dixon, Director of the Nuffield Trust, which has evaluated the pilot. Also, alcohol: beneficial or detrimental? Evidence shows it depends on what aspects of health you look at. Research published on bmj.c...

It has been almost exactly a year since Anders Breivik bombed government buildings in Oslo, and then carried out a mass shooting on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers. In that time there has been much discussion about his mental state. Vivienne Nathanson and Julian Sheather from the BMA join us to discuss the moral and ethical problems that a diagnosis of insanity bri...

Daniel Hackam, associate professor at Western University in Canada, explains how shift patterns can have a detrimental effect on the vascular health of workers. Also this week Seena Fazel, Wellcome Trust senior research fellow in clinical science at the University of Oxford, queries the predictive value of the risk assessment tools routinely used to predict violent behaviour

A feature this week asks "Should patients be able to control their own records?". The website renalpatientview.org allows patients to do exactly that. Neil Turner, a professor of nephrology at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, explains how he and colleagues developed the resource. Also Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, authors of the "Not So Stories" column have turned their statistical scrutiny onto a...