The newsletter of the Medical Journalists’ Association Spring 2015
Summer Awards include Blogger of the year
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This year the MJA’s Summer Awards will, for the first time, include Blogger of the year. Blogging has become a distinct new content format for journalists these days, and the organisers felt it was time to recognise it. Other awards will be familiar. Philippa Pigache has the details. re you a seasoned blogger with a loyal following, writing lively, thought-provoking, wellargued posts on medicine and healthcare?’ writes MJA vice-chair David Payne, who heads the awards subcommittee.‘If you feel you have had a real impact, this is your year. Whether your blog is paid or gratis, on your own blog platform or that of a medical title, you should enter the new MJA award. The judges will want evidence of engagement, including social media “likes”, hits and reader comments, and will look for arresting images and graphics, embedded multimedia and all the other tools of the blogger’s trade that bring a post to life.’
July 9: mark the date Altogether, 11 awards will be presented on Thursday, July 9 – invitations will be emailed in due course. In addition to the new award, we will again offer Editor of the year. (Take it as a given that this means ‘of a medical publication or section’; all awards are for material on health or medicine.) Editors will need to satisfy judges about their vision and achievement. How have they made a difference? What innovative ideas have they introduced? What brand extensions? What evidence of partnership working across external organisations? Not all editors have the same resources, so these also will be taken into consideration.We are repeating Digital innovation. This could be a website redesign, smart-phone app, or creative use of social media and is the place
Contents
Summer Awards
New members
Winter Award roll-call
Winter Award pictures
Kidney disease meeting
Catastrophe meeting
Book reviews
to showcase data-rich info-graphics and creative multi-media thinking.
Most entries this year are for a body of work so entrants should submit up to three pieces of work on the MJA website, or send For all awards evidence of achievement will hard copy to a postal address. For Editor, help the judges, and the entry form will Digital innovation and Story of the year, a include room for back-up information or a single entry, well supported, will suffice. short contextual statement to support We will post the names of judges as they entries. are recruited, and also let you know our sponsors as they confirm their support. Awards for different media sectors Our principal and long-term sponsor Once again the MJA will offer separate Boehringer Ingelheim is on board, as are awards for journalists working in particular Astellas, Galliard Healthcare, Lilly, Merck media sectors: for broadcasters, for staff and Sharp & Dohme, and Roche. They are freelance journalists writing for a general joined by a new sponsor, Bayer. Thanks to audience, and for staff and freelance their continued generosity, the MJA will journalists contributing to specialist media. again be offering cheques of £750 to all There will be an award for journalists winners. working outside London in one of the four UK countries, whether for national or Non-member entrants can join regional publications and/or broadcast MJA Summer Awards are open to all; free outlets, and another one exclusively for to existing members, with a small entry those aged 29 or under on the closing date fee (£22) for non-members. There is no of the awards. The Story of the year will be fee if you apply to join and pay your for a report related to the 2015 general upfront subscription (£40) before election.These three categories are open to submitting an entry. Full details of how to all media: video, audio, print or online. pay on the entry form. ◆
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For the summer 2015 awards presentation, the MJA will return to BMA House with its courtyard and herb garden. Here’s hoping the weather is as perfect as it was last year. 1
NoticeBoard New members
Steve Connor is science editor of The Independent . He has previously worked on The Sunday Times,The Daily Telegraph and New Scientist. He was five times winner of the ABSW science writers’ prize; three times highly commended in the UK Press Awards, received the David Perlman Award of the American Geophysical Union, and won a special merit award from the European Schoo l of Oncology for his investigation into the tobacco indus try. He has also been a past winner of MJA awards. He has more than 35 years’ experience of science, technology and medical journalism, but never tires of learning new things each day.
a graduate trainee at The Victoria Fletcher star ted as the Daily Mail, then Times, before moving to Femail at day Express and Sun became consumer editor for the g a new challenge, she kin see 4, Evening Standard. In 200 press in New Zealand, become a stringer for the British . She returned to the UK and wrote lots of Hobbit stories at the Daily Express. in 2005 to become health editor child three years ago, Following the bir th of her second national press, in she went freelance, filing for the and The Sun. She also does par ticular the Mail on Sunday charities and talks to media training for colleges and media. Her personal scientists and doctors about the rything vintage. passions include running and eve
bers More new medem s at Pembroke history and politic
archer at the Will Hazell studi st worked as a rese fir d an d, or xf O , College rco he took a o. While still at Se rc Se m fir ng ci ur outso enings at Birkm course in the ev lis na ur jo e at du ra d the student postg , where he co-edite on nd Lo , ge le ol C remaining free beck e freelancing in his m so d di d an e, in November magaz lth Service Journal in petition, ea H e th ed in jo e H time. and com on NHS regulation 2013, and reports th West and West or N e beats in th al on gi re o tw as l and quizzing. as wel nning, history, ar t ru ys jo en e H . ds Midlan
tly a Liz Hunt deputy editor at The Telegraph, and recen ber. Liz mem judge for the MJA awards, has joined as an MJA a still started her career as a qualified pharmacist and is been an has member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. She while editor on the Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph and, endent, medical correspondent and health editor at The Indep by run was twice winner of a Medical Journalism Award MJA the Norwich Union Healthcare for the MJA, before nce Awards were established. She was awarded the Laure ed cover Stern Fellowship by TheWashington Post where she ltant consu the health/science beat, and has also worked as a in for The Thomson Foundation, which trains journalists ethical standards and quality repor ting. Catherine Jones is he
Channel 5 News. Last alth correspondent at ITN’s Decem
ber the 5 and 6.30 p. bulletins were broadc m. ast live from NHS lo cations round the country with her reports on the state of the health service, and a series of investigations base d on Freedom of Information requests highlighted key pres sures tin hit the headlines that winter. She gained recogniti on for exposing unethical gastric band surgeons, and her 20 13 investigation into the illegal sale of DIY co smetic dermal filler injections led th e MHRA to take actio n against the company concerned. She has a psychology degree from Aberdeen University and husband and two daug lives in west London with her hters.
anager at elations m initially r ia d e m as been joining mpton h ree years, Mary Fra cer UK for over th e promotes the an Sh Prostate C dia and PR officer. the media, plus e in m s r n g closely paig as senio y and cam and ser vices, workin c li o p ’s y charit arc h n. Foundatio ents in rese developm er, the Movember r tn with its pa
Selena Class studied applied biology and her first job was as editor of Current Advances in Applied Microbiology & Biotechnology, in Leicester. In 1997 she joined IMS Health in London, and for 17 years edited and wrote in-depth profiles of pharmaceutical manufacturers, online/print articles and newsletters. This year she took the plunge and is now a freelance healthcare editor, writer and proof-reader. In her spare time she can be found admiring the lakes near her home from a bright blue tricycle.
ature and theatre at Liana Tarling studied English liter ed Wellards, the University of Manchester, then join S to the pharma and which provides e-learning on the NH of a team med-tech industries, where she is part has a wide remit, producing content for the website. She missioning, market but concentrates on NHS policy, com Away from work she access, oncology and mental illness. ital radio. She is rides, and also presents the local hosp ◆ nalism. working to complete the NCTJ in jour
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Many finalists fled the photo-call in search of a drink after the presentation. Those present above, from left: Alok Jha, Helen Pearson, Nature features editor, collecting for absent winners, Neil Hallows, Daniel Sokol, Catherine de Lange, Dawn Connelly and Andy McNicoll.
WINNERS
Broadcast feature, sponsored by Roche: Kerri Smith, Nature Data journalism, sponsored by Galliard: Dawn Connelly, Pharmaceutical Journal Column or opinion piece, sponsored by MSD: Daniel Sokol, bmj.com Health education, sponsored by the MJA: Neil Hallows, bmj.org.uk Investigative reporting (general), sponsored by Lilly: Chris Smyth, The Times Investigative reporting (specialist), sponsored by the BMA: Andy McNicoll, CommunityCare.co.uk Personal story, sponsored by Novo Nordisk: Peter Docherty, bma.org.uk Profile of a health or medical figure, sponsored by GSK: Alison Abbott, Nature Science explained, sponsored by Astellas: Patrick Strudwick, mosaicscience.com Tony Thistlethwaite health book, sponsored by the MJA: David Adam for The ManWho Couldn’t Stop Video journalism, sponsored by the MJA: Fergus Walsh, bbc.co.uk
COMMENDED
Broadcast feature: Alok Jha, ITV Tonight; Fergus Walsh, BBC Panorama
Personal story: Zosia Kmietowitcz, The Telegraph (highly commended); Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian
Column or opinion piece: Elena Cattaneo and Gilberto Corbellini, Nature; Patrick Strudwick, the Guardian
Science explained: Chloe Lambert, the Guardian; Fergus Walsh, BBC News
Data journalism: Sabilah Eboo, Raconteur; Kerri Smith, Nature;Will Stahl-Smith, bmj.com Health education: Prostate Cancer UK
Investigative reporting (general): Kate Kelland, Reuters; Ric Esther Bienstock
Investigative reporting (specialist): Caroline Price, Pulse
Profile: Catherine de Lange, mosaicscience.com
Tony Thistlethwaite health book: Sandra Hempel, for The Inheritors’ Powder
Video journalism: Ross Lydall, Evening Standard; Anna Magee, healthista.com; Charlotte Stoddard, nature.com
You can find links to the winning entries in the report posted on the MJA website under Awards.
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Photos pages 3, 4 & 5: Dan Tsantilis
Photos pages 1, 3, 4 and 5: Dan Tsantilis
MJA Winter Awards, 2015
The
Judge AdeleWaters with Daniel Sokol, winner of best Column or opinion piece, and DianeWass of MSD, sponsors of the award
Jess Thom (aka Tourette’s Hero), who entert meeting before the awards presentation, wi MJA vice-chair, who acted as MC
ITV Tonight team, from left: Nat Fay, Delilah Jeary,Tim Maynard, Alok Jha (finalist in Broadcast journalism), Diani Vyas and Gabrielle Lawrence
JudgeVivienne Parry with Chris Smyth of Investigative reporting (general)
Jess Thom succeeds in getting her audience to make an obscene gesture during her entertainment. Front row from left: sponsor Di judges Maya Anaokar and MarjorieWallace and guest John Mills; far side of the aisle, judgesVivienne Parry and AdeleWaters 4
MJA Winter Awards 2015 at BMA House
Lancaster Goitres,
tained the ith David Payne,
The Times, winner of
ianeWass, Nat Fay of ITV Tonight with MJA chair Lawrence McGinty 5
Keynote meeting on kidney disease linked to international London congress
Professor David Goldsmith, president of this year’s ERA-EDTA congress
On May 26 the MJA will host a meeting on kidney disease, a curtain-raiser for the 52nd annual international congress of the European Renal Association and the European Dialysis Treatment Association (ERA-EDTA) being held at the same time in London. The MJA meeting will be held at the Medical Society of London, at 11 Chandos Street. An invitation will be distributed shortly. Philippa Pigache tells you why this is an important event.
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Speakers at the meeting include Professor David Goldsmith (above), consultant nephrologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’, and a research-driven clinician who is the president of this year’s ERA-EDTA congress. He is chair of the UK Renal Association International Committee, a member of the European Renal Best Practice Guidance Groups, a director of the South London Clinical Research Network and on the board and executive of the South London Academic Health Science Network. He is associate editor of the International Journal of Clinical Practice and has over 380 scientific articles and publications to his name, including the ABC of Kidney Disease (2007-2013) and the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Nephrology (2015).
p to a million people in the UK may have undiagnosed chronic kidney disease (CKD) according to a 2012 NHS Kidney Care report which reviewed a number of well-conducted earlier studies, and was reported in Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation. Kidney disease is a long-term, progressive condition that does not cause any symptoms in its initial stages, but which has the potential to cause renal failure, the need for dialysis treatment and, in the most serious cases, premature death. In 2008-9 some 1.8 million people in England aged 18 and over were registered with stages 3-5 of the disease (a crude proportion of 4.1 per cent, unadjusted for age or sex).
The report also found that, in 2009-10, diagnosed and undiagnosed CKD combined were estimated to have cost the NHS some £1.45 billion. According to the report, there are an estimated 40,000 to 45,000 premature deaths each year among people with CKD. Those with the condition have longer hospital stays than people of the same age without it, and are more likely to suffer from hospital-acquired infections like MRSA. In addition, the number of people on end-stage kidney therapy (dialysis) increased by 29 per cent between 2002 and 2008.
The president of the ERA-EDTA, Professor Andrzej Wiecek, will also address the MJA meeting. He heads up the Department of Nephrology, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. He is author or co-author of 630 scientific publications and co-editor of 20 books in the field of hypertension and kidney diseases. His interests include kidney transplant and hypertensive patients, endocrine function of the kidney and adipose tissue, and clinical aspects of anaemia management in CKD patients.
MJA member Sue Lyon, who is organising the meeting, has personal experience of living with kidney disease and says she became a medical journalist in part because of it. She will give her own insight into the condition. Among the overall issues that will be covered are NHS England proposals to make a 15 per cent cut to the NHS tariff for dialysis and to move dialysis from specialised commissioning to CCGs – both currently under review – as well as the risk factors for kidney disease, prevention and treatment (there is no cure), including dialysis and transplant.
This meeting will be a unique opportunity to hear international leading specialists presenting on this under-reported and increasingly widespread condition, and the link to the congress should provide leads on breaking research and clinical management stories. MJA members are urged to mark the date in their diaries, and to make a point of booking a place on May 26.
This meeting is being held in memory of Barry Noon, 1946-2015. ◆
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Photo:Trevor Aston
Ebola, earthquakes and medivacs: conflict and catastrophe medicine meeting
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Above, Professor RichardWilliams Right, Gillian Dacey rescuing survivors following an earthquake in Pakistan ‘Running away and being frightened by a catastrophe isn't panic – it's survival,’ he said. Perhaps forgetting his audience's profession, he accused medical journalists of perpetuating the myth that such actions are symptoms of panic. He explained that lessons learned from history – from the 17th century to World War 11 – had revealed the kind of psychosocial support needed following a disaster. They had demonstrated the importance of early intervention, extending care to a whole community, not just individuals. And rescuers and healthcare workers responding to the disaster also needed to be considered, as well as survivors. (I suppose journalists covering such events should also be included in this group?)
he slide (far right) shows the chaos of a building collapsed in an earthquake in Pakistan. Through a dark, impossibly narrow opening, Gillian Dacey had to crawl to rescue a trapped mother and child. Only when she redirected her torch did they see that the father was lying next to them, dead. ‘What about claustrophobia?’ asked someone in her audience. ‘You simply cannot be claustrophobic and do this job,’ she replied. Dacey was speaking at an MJA meeting, held in March at the Apothecaries’ Hall in London, that examined the experience of those who face catastrophes as their everyday job, tackling healthcare’s most challenging medical emergencies. Three speakers from the Faculty of Conflict and Catastrophe Medicine (FCCM), which happens to be based at the Apothecaries, addressed an audience of some 25 members and colleagues.
And so to Gillian Dacey and her devastating slides. A specialist paramedic, formerly with Public Health England, she has travelled the world as a volunteer in search and rescue. She described the amazingly sophisticated equipment used to detect whether there are people still alive in earthquake rubble – snake-eye cameras, and sound vibration detectors that pick up the slightest noise from tens of metres away. Those of us who have seen disaster movies could picture this, but Dacey wasn’t working on a Hollywood set. She said they had to be constantly alert to the danger of aftershocks and secondary collapses, so speed was essential. ‘We want to just get in and get out. We have to adapt and improvise on what we have learned in the NHS. We'd love to be able to do all the stuff we are taught, but we can't. We just do what we can.’ She was still pulling people from the rubble and providing treatment four days after the collapse of the Margalla Towers in Islamabad, Pakistan in 2005.
Opening the evening was Air Vice-Marshal Aroop Mozumder, president of the FCCM. He spoke of how reporting on the Ethiopian famine in 1984 had been ‘intense, fulfilling and changed me forever’. He said that the Faculty had offered a Diploma in the Medical Care of Catastrophes to doctors since 1994 because it was essential doctors who were going to disaster areas were prepared for what they would face. ‘We go into places like Haiti, or Thailand following the Tsunami, but the current medical degree doesn't train people for this. That’s why we introduced this diploma.’ Different kinds of disaster call for different responses. An earthquake, for example, causes more injuries than deaths, so there is a primary need for immediate acute surgery. And there is the very real risk that in the weeks following the disaster there will be more deaths from infectious diseases due to the lack of proper sanitation. He pointed out that international aid organisations were currently not regulated, were often uncoordinated, and at times demonstrated an almost ‘colonial’ approach. ‘We need to teach doctors how to coordinate the work of these agencies, ensuring that victims’ human rights are adequately respected.’ The second speaker was Professor Richard Williams, an expert on the psychosocial aspects of disasters, who is based at the Humanitarian and Conflict Research Institute at the University of Manchester. He debunked a number of myths concerning catastrophes.
All three speakers stressed the continued need for their branch of medicine. There have been 38 major conflicts in the past decade, and three million deaths caused by natural disasters in the last quarter of the 20th century. With terrorism, climate change and potential water shortages, such figures will only increase.
As is usual with an MJA event, the talks were followed by a delicious supper, this time provided by executive committee member Thea Jourdan, who had organised the event. Many thanks, Thea. ◆
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Nicola Hill
BookEnds
‘I’ll See Myself Out,Thank You.’Thirty personal views in support of assisted suicide. Edited by Colin Brewer and Michael Irwin. Skyscraper, £3.73 A Scientist in Wonderland. A memoir of searching for truth and finding trouble. Edzard Ernst. Imprint Academic, £8.87
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appraisal, and the highly controversial Trick or Treatment: Alternative medicine on trial
was going to write two separate reviews about these titles, but I’ve combined them for four reasons. First, they have been written with passion. Brewer and Irwin advocate medically-assisted rational suicide (MARS) while Ernst champions evidence-based treatment in alternative medicine. Second, both books are exceptionally well-written. (I wonder if Ernst writes as well in his native German as he does in his adopted English?) Third, they both have simple, clear messages delivered in the style of the Winston Churchill School of Communication. Churchill said: 'If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a piledriver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then a third time – a tremendous whack.’ Such whacks can generate the kind of controversy that leave lesser people running for cover, but not Brewer, Irwin and Ernst. Fourth, there is a truly baffling similarity. Both books argue their respective cases persuasively, logically, ethically and compassionately, and yet objectives they seek seem as far away as ever. Change in their respective fields is more drip-drip than bang-bang despite all the Churchillian whacking. What of the differences between these books? While Ernst goes it alone, Brewer and Irwin present 30 personal views of assisted suicide. Contributors include the late Oxford GP, author (and MJA member) Ann McPherson, founder of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, and her husband Klim, who describes how she was denied the dignity in death that she wanted so desperately for herself and others. Michael O’Donnell, a former GP and editor of World Medicine (and MJA member, as is Colin Brewer, of course) also writes about the ‘cruel, undignified’ death of his wife. I was left thinking that if it is like this for healthcare professionals, God help everyone else. The writer Deborah Moggach tells how her mother served nine months in prison for attempted murder after agreeing to help a friend whose suicide attempt failed. Irwin writes about accompanying four people to Switzerland to witness their assisted suicides – they had all wanted doctor-supported assisted suicide in their own homes in the UK. Playwright Chris Larner recalls helping his wife Allyson get to Dignitas to end her life, and writing a show about the experience. Chris Woodhead, former head of Ofsted, writes about seeing his parents decline physically and mentally to the point that they could not cope and how, only eight years later, motor neurone disease has left him unable to cope. Much of the Ernst book revisits ground he has covered in his earlier titles, such as Complementary Medicine: an objective
(co-written with Simon Singh). But what puts this book into a class of its own are the author’s recollections of childhood, life as a newly qualified doctor and as a young professor in Vienna; and his battles against various establishments. Born in Germany after World War 11, Ernst was aware of the large skeleton in the nation’s closet, but learned nothing meaningful at school about the Nazi period. How, he wanted to know, had it been allowed to happen? He found himself butting heads with authority and felt that the shameful past, in which almost all his elders had been involved, stripped them of any legitimate right to criticise him. His early passion was for jazz. The fact that it had been banned by the Nazis only made it more appealing. His mother encouraged his non-conformist tendencies. There was nothing more non-conformist than his decision in 1994 to give up the chair in the biggest department of rehabilitation medicine in Europe to become Britain’s first professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter. He was taken on with the goal of subjecting alternative medicine and pseudo-science (the Wonderland of the title) to scientific scrutiny. This made him many enemies, not least of all Prince Charles, ‘staunch advocate of unreason’. We should all feel indebted to Ernst. Add both these titles to your ‘must read’ list. ◆
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John Illman
ou can read Geoff Watts’ review of The Least Likely Man: Marshall Nirenberg and the Discovery of the Genetic Code, by Franklin H. Portugal, on the MJA website. Members can obtain a 30 per cent discount on it and all other MIT Press titles. Sign in and click on News.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Lawrence McGinty, MJA chair EDITOR: Philippa Pigache, Fairfield, Cross in Hand, Heathfield, TN21 0SH CHIEF SUB-EDITOR: Deanna Wilson Designed & printed by Republic Media, London Road, Crowborough, TN6 2TR MJA NEWS is published quarterly Copyright MJA 2015 www.mjauk.org
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