Podcast archive
Doctors on strike
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 Shuster, emeritus professor of dermatology at the University of Newcastle, thinks drug testing for athletes is illogical and immoral.
See also:
Testing athletes, and banning those who take drugs, is unjustifiable
Are doctors justified in taking industrial action in defence of their pensions?Yes or No
25/05/2012 00:01
Anti vaccination movements
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” and that he is making it one of his personal priorities, Marcel Olde Rikkert, professor in geriatrics at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands, discusses his research which looks at the relative effectiveness of dementia follow up care by either dedicated memory clinics or general practitioners.
See also:
Should childhood vaccination be mandatory? Yes or No.
Effectiveness of dementia follow-up care by memory clinics or general practitioners
18/05/2012 46:55
GAVI in Ghana
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.
See also:
Rebecca Coombes: Soaring rents but Ghana gets it right on vaccinations
11/05/2012 43:56
Type 1 or type 2 diabetes?
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
See also;
Late onset type 1 diabetes
Comparison of metformin and insulin versus insulin alone for type 2 diabetes
The BMJ Group diabetes portal
04/05/2012 10:39
SPARX and spirometry
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.
See also
27/04/2012 17:08
23.5 hours to change behaviour
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 book “Switch – how to change things when change is hard” also joins the panel.
The Health Design Lab’s viral video 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? has been watched over 2.5m times, and is freely available on youtube
See also;
20/04/2012 24:35
Overactive bladder syndrome
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.
See also:
Therapeutics: Antimuscarinic drugs to treat overactive bladder
13/04/2012 17:04
Stopping the spread of disease at the Olympics and Hajj
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, and ensuring the knowledge and structures developed are captured. And Ziad Memish, deputy public health minister for Saudi Arabia’s Department of Health, discusses the innovations and interventions his country has pioneered for public health at the Hajj, paving the way for other mass gatherings.
05/04/2012 16:20
SSRIs in dementia, and exposure to a rash in pregnancy
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 patients in Norway.
See also:
Investigating the pregnant woman exposed to a child with a rash
Discontinuation of antidepressants in people with dementia and neuropsychiatric symptoms
30/03/2012 26:57
Emergency contraception, and stopping smoking
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.
See also
23/03/2012 12:29