Medicine and Science from The BMJ

​‪@RichardJMurphy‬, political economist and tax campaigner, joins Kamran Abbasi, Editor in Chief of The BMJ.

In the UK an ongoing dispute between resident doctors and the Labour Government saw doctors go on strike in mid-December. With Winter pressure piling on and cost-of-living on the rise, do doctors have a credible case of pay rises? And more broadly, how can the economic situation of the NHS be improved?

00:00 Introduction
01:30 Doctor Pay Claims
04:33 Inflation Measures
07:29 Affordability Crisis
09:48 Market Forces Arguments
12:52 NHS Affordability
15:00 Youth Unemployment
19:14 Political Priorities
23:10 Neoliberal Capitalism
27:35 Mixed Economy Alternative
32:32 Prescription for NHS

The class of GLP-1 agonist drugs including Ozempic gained a wide reputation for weight loss in 2025. However, it's well established that weight regain is a common result after people stop their doses. We report on new research which aims to quantify what is happening in the here-and-now for patients who stop using these and similar drugs.

Weight regain after cessation of medication for weight management: systematic review and meta-analysis 

 

Also, The BMJ reports on news from Gaza. The Israeli government has issued new directives to strip 37 NGOs of their licences to provide essential aid to the population. This includes Médecins Sans Frontières, the charity directly supporting many of the critically important hospitals in the territory. Gaza is experiencing an especially harsh Winter and MSF warn that this measure could leave Palestinians without lifesaving medical care.

Gaza: Israel moves to ban dozens of aid groups in "cynical and calculated" move 
Gaza in winter: 29 day old baby dies of hypothermia amid dire conditions

 

The BMJ’s annual appeal is supporting the work of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Around the world, MSF teams are providing maternity care, containing outbreaks, and performing vital surgeries. In areas overwhelmed by conflicts and natural disasters, more lives can be saved when we are in the right place at the right time.

Donate today at https://msf.org.uk/bmj-annual-appeal-2025

This episode is available in video form on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1cGrD47eZSk 

American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson joins Kamran Abbasi to discuss climate disaster, the need for political imagination, and science fiction's vision for health.

Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed author of a trilogy of novels, exploring the terraforming and settlement of Mars. His most recent novel, 'Ministry for the Future', was published in 2020.

'Ministry for the Future' sets out a vision for real solutions to our climate crisis, covering global finance, the animal kingdom, rising sea levels, energy production and much more. The book imagines a Ministry that begins its work in 2025.

Five years after publication, with 2025 past and gone, The BMJ spoke to Robinson to explore how closely the novel's vision for the future has reflected reality.

01:00 BMJ's New Climate Change Initiative
01:21 Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future
04:02 The Role of Political Violence in Climate Action
10:50 The Concept of the Carbon Coin
12:51 The Importance of Global Collaboration
27:32 The Role of Medicine in Climate Change
32:33 Youth and Climate Activism
37:53 Hope and Despair in Climate Action
41:29 Conclusion and Future Works

Read more about The BMJ's climate coverage in the latest issue: https://www.bmj.com/content/392/8479

It’s time for 2025’s festive fun!

Practicing medicine can be a very visceral experience - and the English language can’t always adequately capture the sights, sounds, smells. So Matt Morgan, intensivist and BMJ columnist, is creating medical neologisms, and joins us to share a few.

Madhvi Joshi, a GP in London, has written about longevity science, and we hear how the “biohacking” of internet influencers like Bryan Johnson is making its way into the consultation.

Navjoyt Ladher and Tim Feeny take us though this year’s festive research, and are joined by Anupam Bapu Jena from Harvard, who has been looking at self censorship in the time of Trump, and Melanie de Lange, from the university of Bristol, who has been investigating the impact of daylight savings time.

Reading list:

A dictionary for medicine’s unnamed moments
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2476

Science of longevity medicine 
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2536 

Changes in diversity language in National Institutes of Health grant awards
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-087222 

Acute effects of daylight saving time clock changes on mental and physical health in England
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-085962

In this episode, we hear how Generative AI is making it into the consultation room - but not through NHS endorsed routes - surveys suggest that ⅔ of doctors are using AI, for backoffice tasks - but also increasingly for information and diagnosis.

 

David Navarro, a research fellow in generative AI at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Charlotte Blease, associate professor at the Participatory eHealth and Health Data Research Group at Uppsala University, and Marcus Lewis, GP in London, reflect on what we know about the real way in gen AI is being used - and what “triadic care” (doctor, patient and AI) will mean for the future of the therapeutic relationship.

 

We also hear from Teppo Järvinen, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Helsinki University, about surgical subacromial decompression - a 10 year follow up of a double blinded placebo controlled trial, confirms that surgery is no more effective than standard care. Yet surgical interventions continue - we hear why.

 

Finally, we go to a Cholera clinic in Nigeria, where Médecins Sans Frontières are running cholera treatment centres, which you can help by donating to our Christmas appeal.

 

Links

Generative AI and the clinical encounter

 

The BMJ appeal 2025-26: Inside MSF’s response to cholera in Nigeria: a day in the life of an emergency doctor

 

Arthroscopic subacromial decompression versus placebo surgery for subacromial pain syndrome