ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC): A top West Indies Cricket Umpires Association (WICUA) official says regional umpires have also been heavily impacted by the cessation of cricket, stemming from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vivian Johnson, who...

FORMER NATIONAL footballer Aldrick ‘Allie’ McNab is concerned about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Caribbean’s football development. The coronavirus has caused the postponement, suspension, and cancellation of a number of sporting...

Former national footballer Arthur Lattimore has died. Lattimore, who represented Jamaica in the 1970s, lost his battle with throat cancer at his home in Florida on Thursday. Lattimore, who was known as one of Jamaica's most skilful left-sided...

Western Bureau: THE MOBAY City Run organisers have reconsidered the event’s cancellation. Organising committee chair­person Janet Silvera said on Sunday, the day the event was to have taken place, that the seventh staging of the 5K/10K Walk and Run...

National 400m hurdles champion Rushell Clayton is concerned about what she says are inequalities between men and women in track and field. Clayton was speaking at a Women in Sports Conference in Kingston recently and discussed issues of inequality...

MADRID, Spain (AP): Rafael Nadal says Novak Djokovic will need to be vaccinated to keep playing if the governing bodies of tennis make coronavirus shots obligatory once they become available. Nadal told the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia this...

Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) general secretary Dalton Wint says that any potential changes to the Concacaf hexagonal round for the FIFA World Cup qualifiers could present challenges to the nation’s aim of qualifying for Qatar 2022. Wint’s...

One hundred years ago, Pennsylvanian surgeon Evan Kane penned a brief letter to JAMA in which he declared himself a rigorous proponent of the “benefic [sic] effects of the phonograph within the operating room.” Now David Bosenquet, a surgeon from University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff has written a Christmas editorial about the evidence for the...

Waiting times in theatre can be a source of friction – but is the delay due to mandatory anaesthetic faff around time (MAFAT), or AWOL surgeons? Elizabeth Travis, and orthopaedic house officer in New Zealand and colleagues, have been trying to create and evidence base to argue the toss, and she joins me now to discuss her study, Operating...

Rabies is the archytypical zoonotic disease, and only by vaccination in animals will we prevent infections in people. In two podcasts linked to our latest clinical review "The prevention and management of rabies"​ we'll be discussing how we can get there. In this podcast Sarah Cleaveland, professor of comparative epidemiology at the University of...

Private hospital chains have been “buying” referrals by offering clinicians lucrative packages, including free facilities in sought after locations. And the doctors’ regulator is turning a blind eye to those who are tempted, Reporter Jonathan Gornall joins us to discuss the investigation. Read the full...

Karen Grépin, assistant professor of global health policy at New York University, has been examining the pledges made by the international community to help fight the ebola virus outbreak - was it really too little, too late? Read her full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h376

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are usually asymptomatic until they rupture, which is fatal in more than 80% of cases. Screening aims to detect the aneurysm before it ruptures, enabling preventive surgery and hence reducing morbidity and mortality. However, preventive surgery has a mortality of 3.9-4.5%. As the prevalence of risk factors, ie...

Some apps have the potential to encourage healthier habits and are accessible to most people, argues Iltifat Husain, but Des Spence notes the lack of any evidence of effectiveness and the potential for encouraging unnecessary anxiety. Read more about in our head to head "Can healthy people benefit from health apps?" -...

The future of health and social care looks certain to be a defining issue in the forthcoming UK general election. Social care has been subject to deep public spending cuts, raising concerns about the sustainability of services in the future. Whoever wins the next election will need to grapple with providing joined up health and social care...

The movement to make data from clinical trials widely accessible has achieved enormous success, and it is now time for medical journals to play their part. From 1 July The BMJ will extend its requirements for data sharing to apply to all submitted clinical trials, not just those that test drugs or devices. The BMJ's Elizabeth Loder explains what...

Cervical screening programmes in many countries stop at around the age of 65 and much of the focus is often on younger women. However, comparatively little attention has been given to older women despite the fact that they account for about a fifth of cases each year and half of deaths. In this podcast Susan Sherman, a senior lecturer in...

Hepatic encephalopathy constitutes a spectrum of neuropsychiatric abnormalities, beginning with subtle psychomotor changes and progressing to confusion with asterixis, somnolence, and then coma, arising in patients with impaired liver function. In this podcast, Tim Cross, a consultant hepatologist from the Royal Liverpool University Hospital,...

Pleural effusions are common, with an estimated 1-1.5 million new cases in the United States and 200 000-250 000 in the United Kingdom each year. Rahul Bhatnagar, academic clinical lecturer at the University of Bristol, describes how pleural effusions may be investigated and treated in the community and secondary care, with a particular focus on...

How should health professionals engage with this increasingly popular but unproved practice? Aubrey Cunnington, a consultant paediatrician from Imperial College London joins us to discuss. Read the full editorial: http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i227

“Juliet”, a woman living in London, was diagnosed with a mysterious illness in November 2015, Ian Cropley, a consultant in infectious disease from The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, was there to investigate. In this podcast, we find out how Zika, once a little known virus causing a rash and fever, has subsequently become a global health...

However well intentioned, working in detention centres amounts to complicity in torture, says David Berger, a district medical officer in emergency medicine at Broome Hospital in Australia. However, Steven Miles, chair in bioethics at the University of Minnesota thinks that they play an important role in telling the world about conditions in...

Medical error is not included on death certificates or in rankings of cause of death. Martin Makary, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, joins us to explain why we don't measure medical error, and why it is so important that we start. Read the full analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139

The same piece of evidence may reach you via a journalist, or via your doctor - but the way in which that evidence is communicated is changed by your relationship between that person. Julia Beluz from Vox and Victor Montori from the Mayo Clinic join us to discuss if it's possible to reconcile those competing points of view.

The "internal market" was created after the 1987 UK general election focused attention on inadequate funding in the NHS, long waiting lists for elective surgery, and large unwarranted variations in clinical care. Economists attributed these problems to a lack of incentives for efficiency, and the remedies offered included increasing competition...

With the emergence of sofobuvir, a new direct acting antiviral, treatment for Hepatitis C infection is currently undergoing it's greatest change since the discovery of the virus 25 years ago. However Gilead, who manufacture the treatment, are under fire for the cost of the druge - around $90 000 for a course of treatment. Victor Roy, doctoral...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has embraced a new model of drug testing and marketing called “adaptive pathways”, allowing new drugs for “unmet medical needs” to be launched on the market faster, on the basis of fewer data. While industry claims this is necessary, an analysis on thebmj.com looks at the assumptions underlying the new pathway,...

"I say to all Australian doctors - young, old, the political and the apolitical - that on this depends not just our ethical credibility as a profession, but our shared humanity. " Following the leaked emails published in The Guardian newspaper, alleging abuse of asylum seekers detained by the Australian government on the Pacific island of Nauru,...

Oversimplification and lack of evidence stigmatise people with mental illness and impede prevention efforts, says Simon Wessley, professor of psychiatry at King's College London, in an editorial published on thebmj.com. Read the full editorial: http://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i4869

Renal transplantation improves quantity and quality of life compared with chronic dialysis. A UK general practice with 8000 patients will have around four patients with a functioning renal transplant, one patient on the transplant waiting list, and several under consideration for transplantation. Many medical problems in renal transplant...

In an ideal world, policies would be evidence based - but governments are made of humans, who have positions and ideologies and moral bases. In this podcast Anthony Painter, from the RSA will be talking about why universal basic income may work, but who’s proponents cross ideological barriers, and writer and philosopher AC Grayling explains how...

Underneath all of our civilisation and science, we’re still primates - and the connection between patient and doctor can be reinforced by simply taking a hand. Robin Youngson, cofounder of hearts in healthcare, and Mitzi Blennerhassett, who has written extensively on patient engagement, have co-authored an editorial calling for the humanisation...

Evidence shows using electronic health records can increase efficiency, and reduce preventable medical errors - but only if they are used properly. However, in the US, the president of the American Medical Association calls them almost unusable. In this debate, Richard Hurley is joined by George Gellert, Regional Medical Informatics Officer at...

Persistent physical symptoms are common and include those symptoms that last at least three months and are insufficiently explained by a medical condition after adequate examination and investigation. Observational studies in primary care report that women, especially those aged 35-45 years, more commonly present with these symptoms. In this...

Scott Murray, professor of primary palliative care at the University of Edinburgh, has written, and talked in this podcast before, about the benefits of early palliative care - and today he’s back to explain how illness trajectory, and the pattern of decline at the end of life, affects 4 main areas of wellness - physical, social, psychological and...

Viral exanthema can cause rash in a pregnant woman and should be considered even in countries that have comprehensive vaccination programmes. Measles and rubella can cause intrauterine death. Intrauterine infection with rubella can lead to congenital rubella syndrome in the liveborn baby. In this podcast, Jack Carruthers, honorary clinical...

The BMJ publishes a lot of educational articles, and in an attempt to help you with your CPD, we have put together this round-up. Our authors and editors will reflect on the key learning points in the articles we discuss, and explain how they may change their practice in light of that new understanding. In this week's round up we're...

For seven years, Republicans have vowed to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare), and that promise took a central place in President Trump's campaign. The first major vote to replace it was due to happen last week, but was cancelled at the 11th hour. In advance of the potential vote, The BMJ published a debate asking "Should US doctors...

Around 1 in 10 children and young people worldwide have mental health difficulties that substantially affect their lives. Child mental health services often concentrate on risk reduction, at the expense of the wider aspects of a child's wellbeing. As part of the high integrity healthcare series, this podcast focuses on novel ways of providing...

The BMJ has published a series of articles, taking an in-depth look at health in South Asia. In this collection, authors from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan collaborate to identify evidence-based solutions to shape health policy and interventions, and drive innovations and research in the region. In this podcast,...

Thankfully, electrical injuries are relatively uncommon - but that means that lack of evidence regarding the management of patients who have been electrocuted, which can cause concern for clinicians when these patients present. In this podcast, Cath Brizzel, clinical editor for The BMJ, is joined by one of the authors of a clinical update on the...

We're creating a manifesto for better evidence. The centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, and the BMJ, are asking what are the problem with medical evidence, and how can we fix them? In this second discussion we went to Nottingham​ University, to find out what the people who create the bread and butter of EBM -...

Pharma companies say that money spent on promotion is essential to educate doctors about the best drugs - but when a medical student asked Joseph Ross, associate professor of medicine and public health at Yale, if those companies are promoting the right drugs for that message to be true, the answer wasn't available. Ross and Tyler Greenaway, his...

The rapid changes in the global environment have led many scientists to conclude that we are living in a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—in which human activities have become the dominant driving force transforming the Earth’s natural systems. A recent joint publication by the World Health Organization and Convention on Biological Diversity...

The 2014 west African Ebola epidemic shone a harsh light on the health systems of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. While decades of domestic and international investment had contributed to substantial progress on the Millennium Development Goals, national health systems remained weak and were unable to cope with the epidemic. Margaret Kruk...

The Alzheimer’s society, in the UK, predicts that if the rates of dementia remain constant there’ll be 1.7 million people in the country living with the condition by 2050. We also know that things like improvements in cardiovascular health are changing those rates. New research published on bmj.com attempts to model what the outcomes of those...

Mike Richards is well known in the UK - former Cancer Tzar, he now heads up the Care Quality Commission - regulator of all health and social care services, and therefore the body responsible for inspecting hospitals and GP practices. In this interview, BMJ’s head of news and views, Rebecca Coombes went to the CQC’s headquarters in London, and...

In this interview from Preventing Overdiagnosis 2017 (preventingoverdiagnosis.net) Stacy Carter, associate professor at Sydney Health Ethics - and the author of a recently written BMJ essay the ethical aspects of overdiagnosis, joins us to talk about how the cultural context of medicine seeps into our decision making processes and affects how...

The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds. A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of...

The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds. A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of...