The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1518
Nick Lown
{"title":"Ambient scribing risks loss of the cognitive benefits of writing","authors":"Nick Lown","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1518","url":null,"abstract":"Stokel-Walker summarises the artificial intelligence (AI) tools being used to record doctor-patient conversations.1 I encourage clinicians who are using ambient scribing to familiarise themselves with the concept of cognitive artefacts: artefacts that “maintain, display, or operate upon information in order to serve a representational function”2—that is, a physical thing that helps us …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144701490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1561
Vicki B Gaubeca
{"title":"US immigration detention centers threaten health and human rights","authors":"Vicki B Gaubeca","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1561","url":null,"abstract":"Unsafe conditions and abusive practices are systemic in immigration detention facilities, writes Vicki B Gaubeca “We had to sleep on a bus for two nights, sitting on hard seats and shackled,” and they “only allowed us to use the bathroom once” explained a man in his late 40s in an interview with Human Rights Watch. He was describing being held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on a parked bus for almost 48 hours in front of the Krome North Service Processing Center near Miami, Florida, in March 2025. Experiences like this are part of a pattern of abusive and harmful practices and conditions in US detention facilities. In a new report, “You Feel Like Your Life is Over”: Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025 , Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South documented the conditions and treatment of people detained at these centers.1 Everyone we interviewed said they had been held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions and subjected to degrading treatment. Some described being denied prompt …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144701489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2025-085121
Anna Nicholson, Rachel Abbott, Caradee Y Wright, Perdy Kamali, Craig Sinclair
{"title":"Skin cancer prevention and sunscreens","authors":"Anna Nicholson, Rachel Abbott, Caradee Y Wright, Perdy Kamali, Craig Sinclair","doi":"10.1136/bmj-2025-085121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-085121","url":null,"abstract":"### What you need to know A parent visits their general practitioner with their 1 year old child, who is due to receive several vaccinations. During the appointment, the parent asks whether it is OK to start using infant sunscreen formulations, as they have heard there is a risk that sunscreens can be unsafe for infants, and that they can cause skin reactions. You observe that the infant has fair skin. The parent notes their child has sensitive skin, which is easily irritated, and asks for your recommendation. Skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide.1 The Global Burden of Disease study shows rates of skin cancer continue to rise, largely owing to an aging population.12 The most common skin cancers include keratinocyte cancers, basal cell cancer and cutaneous squamous cell cancer, and melanoma. Deaths due to melanoma are projected to increase by about 68% from 2020 to 2040.1 Although improvements in treatments for advanced melanoma have reduced mortality rates globally, these therapies are expensive and contribute to the …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144701704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1577
Jeffrey K Aronson
{"title":"When I use a word . . . “Publish or perish”: adverse effects","authors":"Jeffrey K Aronson","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1577","url":null,"abstract":"I have previously defined the “publish or perish” doctrine as “An aphorism that describes the pressure on an academic to have innovative scholarly material published in reputable journals or other forms of scholarly output, sufficiently often, in order to avoid demotion, dismissal, failure to progress in one’s scholarly career, or diminishing the status or reputation of one’s scholarly community or discipline.” The doctrine has been responsible, at least in part, for many deleterious effects on academic practice: increased numbers of publications, accompanied by an increase in the numbers of co-authors on each paper; a reduction in the quality of the work being published; wasted resources and the reproducibility crisis; stifling of innovation; increased research misconduct of different types; the burgeoning of paper mills and predatory journals; increasing numbers of retractions of published work; increased burnout among senior academics and an increased reluctance on the part of trainees to enter research; and diversion of attention from teaching to research. I have previously defined the “publish or perish” doctrine as “An aphorism that describes the pressure on an academic to have innovative scholarly material published in reputable journals or other forms of scholarly output, sufficiently often, in order to avoid demotion, dismissal, failure to progress in one’s scholarly career, or diminishing the status or reputation of one’s scholarly community or discipline.”1 I call it a doctrine, which is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) as “That which is taught or laid down as true concerning a particular subject or department of knowledge.”2 The doctrine states that if you do not publish you will perish. Others have attached a range of other words …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144710575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1242
Dominic Norcliffe-Brown, Andrew Green
{"title":"The protections for healthcare enshrined in international humanitarian law are under severe strain in an increasingly war-torn world","authors":"Dominic Norcliffe-Brown, Andrew Green","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1242","url":null,"abstract":"Attacks on healthcare and violations of medical neutrality—the fundamental principle that medical care must operate free of political or military interference—have become alarmingly unexceptional in modern conflicts. Patients have been dragged from hospital beds by security forces. Medical supplies have been looted and blockaded. Hospitals are bombed while others are repurposed for military uses. Doctors are arbitrarily detained, tortured, or even killed. All of these actions represent clear violations of international humanitarian law. Simultaneously, wars are becoming more common, with the number of conflicts increasing dramatically since 2010.1 The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law records over 110 conflicts in the world today.2 From 2021 to the end of 2024, conflict-affected areas increased by two-thirds, encompassing a land mass nearly double the size of India.3 UNICEF has stated that nearly one in five children now live in conflict zones, a record high.4 These two trends—the decrease in respect for medical neutrality and increase in conflict zones—are combining with lethal impact. The recently published Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition report for 2024 indicated it was the worst year on …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144701709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1429
Ella Hubbard
{"title":"How to … write a Minerva Picture or Endgames article for The BMJ?","authors":"Ella Hubbard","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1429","url":null,"abstract":"As a medical student, some of the best learning happens at the bedside: patients are some of our most important teachers. But learning from patients doesn't stop when we graduate. Often, these cases teach us the things that textbooks can't: conditions that present in unusual ways, or cases that teach us how complexity and comorbidity affect the way conditions manifest. The BMJ 's Endgames and Minerva Pictures series are a place where medical students and doctors can share these pieces of real world learning. We welcome submissions from medical students writing alongside fully qualified consultants or general practitioners: after all, if you learnt something from a patient, it’s likely that someone else could too. So, here are our editorial team's top tips for how to write a good Endgames or Minerva Picture article: All Minerva Pictures and Endgames articles start with a patient from whom you learnt something. It might be the cutaneous features of zinc deficiency, the x ray features of a boxer’s fracture, or the rash you get after eating undercooked mushrooms: they’re all topics we’ve had cases on in the past year. Importantly, we aren’t looking for rare conditions. For Minerva, we’re looking for uncommon presentations of common conditions. For Endgames, we’re looking for common presentations of common conditions. This is where these articles are a bit different from “standard” case reports, which often focus on clinical rarities. Instead, we’re looking for articles which will educate and interest our broad readership. Remember, a wide range of doctors, healthcare professionals, and medical students read The BMJ , so articles should appeal to those working across a range of specialties: an account of a rare neurosurgical emergency won’t be as useful or …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144694107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1472
Tom Nolan
{"title":"Battle of the weight loss giants . . . and other research","authors":"Tom Nolan","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1472","url":null,"abstract":"Tom Nolan reviews this week’s research Cannabinol—aka CBD—is a modern day tonic for almost any ailment, available in all good vape shops and petrol stations. In 2023, the Food Standards Agency cut the recommended safe dose of CBD from 70 mg per day to 10 mg per day. However, as these are only recommendations for what’s classed as a “novel” food, people will often take much higher doses. A randomised control trial assessed the frequency of abnormal liver enzymes with a higher dose of 5 mg/kg/day. Eight out of 151 participants allocated to take CBD had liver enzyme level elevations greater than three times the upper limit of normal by the end of the 28 …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144693978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1469
British Medical Journal Publishing Group
{"title":"Cash transfers . . . and other stories","authors":"British Medical Journal Publishing Group","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1469","url":null,"abstract":"Among 900 women with epilepsy studied throughout their pregnancy in China, around half remained free of seizures, whereas a quarter experienced deterioration of seizure control ( J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry doi:10.1136/jnnp-2024-335751). Seizures during gestation, particularly status epilepticus, doubled the risk of neurodevelopmental delay, low birth weight, and fetal death in the offspring, but there was no increase in the incidence of major congenital malformations. Mothers and children in low income households have poorer health than those from high income households. A trial in four cities in the United States explored …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144693979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1485
Elgan Manton-Roseblade
{"title":"60 seconds on … Alcohol risk labels","authors":"Elgan Manton-Roseblade","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1485","url":null,"abstract":"Pretty much. Since January, health leaders globally have been calling for all alcoholic beverages to carry prominent warning labels to highlight cancer risk. First the US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recommended updating US alcohol labelling to include a cancer risk warning.1 Then in February, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European office joined him, pointing to widely adopted tobacco warning labels and data that 78% of Europeans support having similar warnings for alcohol.2 Alcohol indeed has a causal link with at least seven types of malignancy, …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"709 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144694156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r1345
James Ellis
{"title":"“Big food” and football—a troubling alliance","authors":"James Ellis","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r1345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1345","url":null,"abstract":"Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of major sports tournaments has long raised eyebrows.1 The relationship between sport and junk food corporations continues to warrant scrutiny, not just on the global stage, but also here in the UK. For two decades, McDonald’s was a key sponsor of grassroots football through partnership with the Football Association (FA) in the UK.2 Even after their official sponsorship ended in 2022, McDonald’s …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"115 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144694111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}