Hilary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics, has spent the last 3 years collating the evidence for treatment of gender questioning young people; engaging with those young people, their families and their clinicians - all with the aim of improving NHS treatment of this complex and vulnerable group. In this interview, Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief of The BMJ, speaks in depth to Cass about her review - about evidence base for transitioning, but also about the way in which the siloing of care for young trans people has failed them.  They discuss the need to support ..read more

Derogation, the way in which striking doctors can be recalled to the ward to protect patient safety, was agreed by NHS England and the BMA. Now, new data The BMJ has uncovered shows that the mechanism was rarely used - and when it was tried, was often rejected. Gareth Iacobucci explains what that means about relations between the government, the NHS, and doctors. Felice Jacka, director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University, is one of the authors of our recent ultra-processed foods umbrella review - and joins the podcast to talk about the link between diet and health; and why gover ..read more

In this week's podcast:   How AI will affect the clinician-patient relationship? Our annual Nuffield Summit roundtable asks how the promise of tech tools stacks up against reality, and how the future of the therapeutic relationship can be protected (participants below).   Your code is as important as your methods, which is why The BMJ now requires you to share it - Ben Goldacre and Nick De Vito, from the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford, explain why it's so important, and how The BMJ's new data and code sharing policy could change research transp ..read more

With a new logo, and new music, comes a revamped The BMJ Podcast. Every two weeks we’ll be bringing you a magazine style show, more variety and perspectives on medicine, health, and wellbeing. In this episode: Former chief executive of the NHS, Nigel Crisp, explaining why the UK is  facing a national health and care emergency (01:22) The guest editors of our US covid series, Gavin Yamey and Ana Diez Roux, discuss the US pandemic response, and how problems are built into the US constitution (19:48) How The BMJ’s ActionAid appeal will help people in Gaza, Syria and Somalia (33:06) &n ..read more

  In this festive edition of the BMJ podcast, we hear about what medicine can learn from music, when it comes to giving a convincing performance, and how we can grow an evidence base for nature prescribing.   Professors Roger Kneebone and Aaron William of the Centre for Performance Science raise the curtain on the performance of medicine, and we hear what your consultation technique could learn from a hairstylist.   Ruth Garside, Professor of Evidence Synthesis, Karen Husk, Associate Professor of Health Sciences and Edward Chapman from the Health and Environment Public Engagemen ..read more

There’s an inherent tension between creating quality standards that are very clinically focussed, and standards which are very patient centred - especially in settings where clinical outcomes can be compromised by basic lack of resources.  The use of oxytocin to prevent bleeding after birth is an example of this - WHO quality guidelines clearly measure and incentivise use of the drug, but in more wealthy healthcare systems, adherence patient preference is the key measure. How can we ensure that less wealthy healthcare systems are also patient centred?   Our guests for this discussion ..read more

In this specially curated three-part podcast series from The BMJ, we explore the importance of community and connection to foster adolescent wellbeing.   The discussion covers athe  wide array of issues young people face, with a particular focus on the unique challenges of adolescence from a social perspective. The episode unpacks the significance of having supportive relationships within families, schools, and communities and the influence of these relationships on the mental and behavioural health outcomes of adolescents.    It also explores the impact of digitalization o ..read more

In the final episode of this three-part podcast series from The BMJ, we dive into the vital topic of education for adolescents and how it influences the course of life.    This podcast explores barriers, burdens and possibilities of change in the educational system to better support young people, and how the traditional system of schooling is failing to equip young people with the skills and knowledge to lead healthy lives.   We also hear how the value of informal education and its impact on subjects ranging from health to gender equality, and that learning isn’t limited to youn ..read more

The December edition of the Talk Evidence podcast discusses the complexities of seeking consent from patients who are part of large data sets, and some new research to help patients living with diabetes in places without certain power supplies. First patient consent and data - in the UK,  two stories that have made the public worry about the use of their health data. Firstly the news that UK biobank, who hold a lot of genomic and health data, allowed research by an insurance company, and second that the NHS has entered a contract with Palentir to do analysis on NHS data. Natalie Banner, d ..read more

We were accepting of an increase in deaths every winter 'flu season, but Ashish Jha thinks that is not longer a tenable position. Lessons he learned during his time as the White House Covid-19 coordinator have convinced him we should be taking a different approach to the winter season. In this interview with Mun-Keat Looi, The BMJ's international features editor, we hear about living with COVID, the future of antivirals, vaccines, and surveillance. They talk about long COVID, the investment required to fight future outbreaks effectively, and the role of the US in the global health respons ..read more