Front cover (large)

Contents page (PDF)

Cover Image

Editor's choice

Honour and recognition

Frontiers

The month in research

Editorials

Self harm
Deliberate self injury is common but often poorly managed, and so awareness is essential, say Abigail Naomi Kinmond and Kathryn S Kinmond

Two and a bit cheers for academic medicine
Much current research on education lacks depth and meaning, and risks building a misleading picture of academic effectiveness, argues Professor John Skelton

News

So long free lunch

news bites

Education

Ethics made easy
Getting to grips with the main features of the different ethical theories can be daunting. Daniel K Sokol and Gillian Bergson make it a bit simpler

Central venous access: anatomy and ultrasound

ABC of wound healing:Reconstructive surgery
Many surgical options are available to a reconstructive surgeon when faced with a difficult wound, say Dean E Boyce and Kayvan Shokrollahi

On the front line:Médecins Sans Frontières
James M N Duffy profiles the leading organisation that puts doctors in places of acute humanitarian crises

A boot shaped heart

Careers

A plagiarist on both your houses
What happens when you're discovered as a plagiarist, and how do you move on?

Medical students:benefit or burden?
Rachel Cornell looks back at her five years of undergraduate study and asks herself whether medical students are a help or a hindrance

Medical librarians
A medical career entails the constant pursuit of information. Helen Elwell explains how to make the most of the skills and knowledge of medical librarians

From medical student to junior doctor: the night shift
In the last part of the series, Geoffrey Robinson and colleagues tell us how to make sure that the lights never go out during the night shift

People

Five day test
Peter Gregory was doctor to England's cricket team when they won the Ashes in 2005 and also toured Pakistan. Rob Mortell talks to him about cricket and sports medicine as a specialty

Premiership doctor
How exactly do you get into sports medicine and what does it involve? Seema Haider and Nicholas Ramscar spoke to Ian Beasley of Arsenal Football Club, the other north London football club, and here's what he had to say

Papers

Children's bones and calcium supplements:meta-analysis
Meta-analyses combine the results of separate randomised controlled trials. Elizabeth Loder looks at one that shows parents might have got it wrong when they recommend their children drink milk for strong bones

Life

Stars of screen & theatre
Rebecca Chellaswamy explores realism in television medical dramas through the eyes of a popular BBC soap

Fake medicine but real money
Quackery is a menace crippling modern medicine in India, argues Vikas Dhikav

On the front line: Doctor in Darfur
While wealthy nations decide whether or not the catastrophe in Darfur is genocide, Jim Fuller describes the immediacy of the crisis that the world is yet to wake up to

When love hurts
"The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old." Ozge Tuncalp and Susan Richman explore medical professionals' roles in managing domestic violence

Letters

Residency in the US

Harassment of medical students: a source of education

Poor prescribing is continual

Reviews

Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design

Plastic surgery

Whither the recognition?

The VIP (very important patient)

Feverish ideas

Eyespy