Contents: November 2002

Editorials

Happy Birthday studentBMJ
Anna Ellis and Richard Smith reflect on the beginnings of the studentBMJ and look ahead to the next ten years

Being an adviser to the studentBMJ
Rhona MacDonald explains why the studentBMJ needs you and how you can get involved in shaping it

Patients views of the good doctor
Angela Coulter explains why doctors have to earn patients trust

News

Selling a kidney fails to rescue Indians from poverty

WHO highlights impact of violence on health

Genomes of the malaria mosquito and parasite are sequenced

Bits & pieces

Television company wants terminally ill patient to plastinate

Contact lenses increase pulling power

Graduate students are more challenging, demanding, and questioning

Good communication skills can mask deficiencies

Students' heads are so full of lists they have forgotten how to listen

Students need to resist personality conformity

Education

Mastering EMQs
Most of us will take an exam at some point that involves EMQs. Ian Bickle takes us through this new style of exam and gives advice on how best to tackle them

How to write a good essay and win prizes
Sabina Dosani explains how and why medical students should write essays

The evidence based clinician: part 3--applying evidence to your patient
In the third part of his series, Christopher Ball looks at how to apply evidence to patients, by focusing on treatment decisions

Ophthalmology: loss of vision
In the second part of our series, Sophia Pathai and Andrew McNaught explain how to approach a patient who has a loss of vision

Estimating with samples
In the fifth part of our series on medical statistics, Wai-Ching Leung takes us through sampling

Careers

Break a leg: performing arts medicine
Helen Barratt takes a look at this undervalued emerging specialty

Profile: Frances Carter
Helen Barratt talks to Frances Carter, a general practitioner with a special interest in performing arts medicine

Trust him, he's a doctor
Phil Hammond juggles many career hats--comedian, campaigner, and lecturer--as well as doctor.

Profile: Heather Clark
Remember hearing about the doctor who saved a patient's life by performing a thoracotomy on a pub floor? Clare Hughes finds out that there is much more to this former professional ballroom dancer than a one off act of heroism

Papers

Doctors' perceptions of drinking alcohol while on call: questionnaire survey

Commentary: Mona Okasha takes you through this paper and explains what it means

Life

India: sights, sounds, and smells
Amlan Basu spent four weeks at the Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, India, discovering an ethos of medicine that was totally different to anything that he had ever come across before

Planning your elective--India
Mark Wilson gives you some tips on arranging an elective in India

Once in a lifetime
George Dafoulas looks at volunteer culture and explains how medical students can get involved in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens

Everything I have I take with me
Mirza Muminovic, a third year medical student at the University of Sarajevo, talks to Deborah Cohen about his life and the civil war in Bosnia in the 1990s

Student editors: what happened next?

Life in 1992
What was life like for medical students when the studentBMJ began in 1992? Mark Scoote, Rachel Hooke, and Sabina Dosani reminisce

The Clegg Scholarship: an alternative elective
Ruth Little gives the lowdown on her time working at the BMJ in London, far from her native city of Melbourne, learning about medical journalism

Being a student adviser on the studentBMJ
Helen Barratt, one of our experienced advisers, gives her personal perspective

Between aspiration and reality
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee gives her opinion on the training of doctors