The mind’s eye and aphantasiaI have previously discussed the mind’s eye and the condition in which it is absent or impaired, called aphantasia, from which I suffer.1Most of us have an oculus mentis, a mind’s eye. In English it was originally called “the eye of the mind” and is mentioned in “The Man of Law’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, written at the end of the 14th century. The earliest recorded instance of the modern version of the phrase is to be found in “De Regimine Principum,” “The Regiment [i.e. Rule] of Princes,” a poem by Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (c 1369?1426), in which he exhorts the King, Henry V, to “Have often him [i.e. God] before your myndes eye.” Some people, however, don’t have a mind’s eye or have one that is not well developed. And in 2015 Adam Zeman and his colleagues gave a name...

In the abstract of this paper by Onyinyechi Duru and colleagues (BMJ 2026;392:e086384, doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-086384, published 21 January 2026), the end date of the study was incorrectly reported as 2000 instead of 2020. This has been corrected.

The competing interests statement in this editorial by Courtland K Keteyian and colleagues (BMJ 2016;355:i5996; doi:10.1136/bmj.i5996) was incomplete. The authors omitted to declare that Marschall S Runge was on the board of directors of Eli Lilly.

In this paper by Matthew Luney and colleagues (BMJ 2026;392:e085539, doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-085539, published 12 February 2026), author Arwa Hagana’s name was misspelt. This has been corrected.

Doctors need to show humility in consultations when patients present them with information they have found online, an expert panel has said.Convening at the Nuffield Trust Summit on 6 March, the panel also identified the need for doctors to explain to patients why they are giving them specific advice, to help maintain trust.The roundtable discussion—chaired by The BMJ’s editor in chief, Kamran Abbasi—asked how NHS staff should tackle health misinformation and disinformation and discussed whether the proliferation of such content online was damaging the doctor-patient relationship.Kamila Hawthorne, former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners and current chair of the National Academy for Social Prescribing, told the panel that patients in consultations regularly presented her with information they had found by researching online. “Patients are coming in with information more and more, and they’re almost testing me,” she said.A fellow panellist, Nnenna Osuji—haematologist and incoming chief executive of the...

A second regulator has joined efforts to overturn a decision that cleared a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon of supporting terrorism and the proscribed organisation Hamas.1The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) has now joined the General Medical Council (GMC) in its High Court appeal against a decision by an independent medical practitioners tribunal on the case of Ghassan Abu-Sitta.In January the tribunal found that allegations against Abu-Sitta over a 2018 newspaper article in Arabic and two reposts on Twitter (now X) were not proved, and he was cleared of all charges against him.2 But he now faces a High Court appeal in which both bodies will argue that he should not have been acquitted.The PSA told The BMJ that it had taken the decision to appeal, “as we consider the decision to be insufficient to protect the public.” Both the PSA and the GMC deciding to appeal a...

The UK health research funding landscape has changed with unprecedented speed over the past three months. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s largest public investor in research and innovation, is redesigning how it allocates its four year £38.6bn budget across its seven research councils.1 In addition, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has dramatically narrowed its scope for global health funding to focus on “acute and chronic global health security threats,” after pausing its global health programme for around six months.2Researchers have voiced concerns about job losses, institutional instability, and the waste of time and public money invested in writing and reviewing grant applications for schemes that were unexpectedly terminated or paused.3 UKRI should mitigate the potential negative impacts of these rapid changes by considering three interlinked matters: transparency and suddenness of decision making; lack of engagement with researchers and universities; and unintended consequences.Universities operate on...

A bill promising to prioritise UK trained medical graduates for training places has become law.However, doctors’ leaders say questions remain over international medical graduates (IMGs) and the definition of doctors with “significant experience.”The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 20261 passed the final legislative stage on 5 March after it gained Royal Assent, with the government saying it would come into force on 6 March.It promises to prioritise UK trained graduates for foundation training places and prioritise UK medical graduates and non-UK trained doctors with what is deemed to be “significant NHS experience” for specialty training places.It aims to make good on a government promise from the NHS 10 year plan2 to tackle “the choked recruitment system” that has resulted in UK trained doctors being unemployed because of rising competition for posts from IMGs.3Since visa restrictions on IMGs working in the UK were lifted in 2020 the estimated numbers of applicants for...

Consultants have urged unions and regulators to protect their freedom of speech after high profile cases of doctors facing regulatory action.At the annual BMA consultants conference this week (4 March), consultants overwhelmingly backed a motion (88%) outlining their right to freedom of expression. This included the ability to speak out on matters of public conscience, international conflict, and humanitarian law.Consultants specifically called for the regulator the General Medical Council (GMC), independent tribunal the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), and the BMA to take actions to counter unfairness in the current regulatory system (box).Huda Mahmoud, a nephrology consultant at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust—who proposed a motion—told the conference she was concerned about infringements to doctors’ freedom of speech.She highlighted the case of Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian plastic surgeon and humanitarian doctor.Abu-Sitta, 57, faced allegations relating to an article he wrote in 2018 in a Lebanese newspaper that it was said...

Health workers and facilities have come under attack across the Middle East as conflict engulfs the region, health leaders and charities warn.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and the World Health Organization have urged restraint, with the escalating situation threatening to collapse already fragile healthcare systems.Fighting involving Iran, Israel, and armed groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon has intensified in recent days following joint US-Israeli air strikes on Iran on 28 February that killed the nation’s supreme leader, ??Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Israel carried out further air strikes on Iran and on Hezbollah positions in Beirut on 4 March, while a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing 87.1Iran and Hezbollah have fired rockets and drones at countries across the region in retaliation, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatening on 4 March the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic...

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order aiming to increase domestic production of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate, sold as Roundup.1Trump’s 18 February order comes under a national security justification for increasing US production of glyphosate for food security. It grants immunity under compliance with the Defense Production Act, which generally protects parties from liability for actions taken to comply with orders under the act, though it does not provide blanket product liability immunity.But the move has brought angry accusations of betrayal from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and placed its founder, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, in the awkward position of defending a product he has long condemned.Roundup is made by Bayer, which acquired the original manufacturer Monsanto in 2018. The pesticide has been the subject of tens of thousands of lawsuits, many from users who claim to have developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma as result of...

bmj;392/mar06_3/s439/FAF1faWhen the powers that be at King’s College Hospital told neurosurgeon Charles Polkey that it had decided to name a ward after him he was initially reluctant to accept the honour. He only relented after his wife, Maureen, told him he should do so as he had devoted his life to the hospital. Polkey also reasoned that the recognition would highlight the good work of the unit to which he had been so dedicated.Polkey’s reserve was characteristic of a man who colleagues described as humble and quietly self-assured; while his work was internationally recognised, he had little ego or vanity.He undertook all forms of neurosurgery, including emergency paediatric neurosurgery, but was best known for his work in epilepsy surgery. He was appointed to the Maudsley Hospital as successor to Murray Falconer, who in the early 1970s had developed temporal lobectomy for the treatment of intractable epilepsy. Polkey built on Falconer’s...

A UK Supreme Court ruling could increase damages for children negligently brain damaged at birth.1Previously young children could claim damages for earnings lost through not being able to work, but an Appeal Court ruling in 1981 limited the period of lost earnings to the years they are expected to live. Many have a shortened life expectancy because of their injury.Supreme Court judges have now overturned that decision, allowing lost earnings to be claimed for the full period the child, if uninjured, would probably have worked and received a pension.The 10 year old girl at the centre of the case, who cannot be named, has severe spastic cerebral palsy as a result of a brain injury from when she was born at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield in 2015.She has pain and spasms, profound learning difficulties, severe visual impairment, respiratory impairment, and epilepsy, and has a life expectancy of 29....

Atrocities carried out by paramilitary forces in western Sudan as they laid siege to the city of El Fasher have the “hallmarks of genocide,” a fact finding mission for the United Nations has said.Evidence shows that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Darfur region carried out targeted killings, sexual violence, starvation, torture, and “systematic humiliation” of non-Arab communities with the goal of wiping them out, the mission concluded.12“The RSF acted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Zaghawa and Fur communities in El Fasher,” said Mona Rishmawi, a member of the mission. “These are the hallmarks of genocide.”Sudan has been beset by war for two decades, but conflict escalated in 2023 when the RSF and Sudan’s national army stepped up their battle for control of the country. An estimated 150 000 people have been killed and 14 million displaced since April 2023, making it the largest...

A total of 130 measles cases have been confirmed in England so far this year, with 34 cases reported in the past week, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.1The agency warned that some children have had to be admitted to hospital, and has urged parents to ensure their children get vaccinated.So far this year 103 cases have been reported in January and 27 in February (as of 16 February). Because of the time lag involved when confirming cases through laboratory testing, the true number is likely higher, the UKHSA said.Just under 1000 total cases were reported across England last year,2 with 88 reported in January and 68 reported in February 2025.The recent increase has largely been driven by an outbreak in north London.3 So far 50 cases have been confirmed in Enfield, while Haringey has reported 10 cases. For comparison, Enfield reported just 14 confirmed cases in all...

Before planning a new clinical trial, a systematic review of existing trials on the topic is essential for an evidence based approach to identify the knowledge gap and to best inform the design of the new trial.123 However, several studies indicate that systematic reviews are underused when planning clinical trials.456789 Reasons include researchers’ perceptions that they are experts in the field who know all relevant research, the fact that systematic reviews are typically time consuming, a lack of specific funds or personnel with suitable expertise, no enforcement by funders and ethics committees, and insufficient awareness and knowledge about systematic reviews.7 Failure to consider existing evidence, however, can result in unnecessary or poorly designed trials, put participants at risk, waste valuable resources, and diminish the public’s trust in science.5691011121314151617Rapid reviews are “a type of systematic review in which components of the systematic review process are simplified, omitted, or made more efficient...

Doctors who face spiralling student loans believe that they may never own a house or have children, the BMA has warned.Union leaders say that doctors now face losing 10% of their income over their working lives in a “broken” system that has left some regretting their choice to study medicine entirely.Speaking to The BMJ, Callum Parr—deputy chair of the BMA’s UK Resident Doctors Committee—said that he personally had £120 000 of student debt, which had grown from the initial £90 000 he borrowed despite him making payments towards it.“I’m from a working class background. I went to a state school. The only way that I could become a doctor, the first doctor in my family, is by borrowing what is now £120 000 and paying that off for the next three decades,” he said. “I don’t think I would have made the same decision knowing what I know now, to...

Was Emily Brontë familiar with sexual choking? From Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Wuthering Heights, you’d think so. Fennell’s film, among its other questionable choices, panders to the current fashion of “normalising” strangulation during consensual sex. Depictions of sexual choking in media, popular culture, and pornography glamorise it and “erroneously portray it as safe,” explain Anousha Victoire and colleagues, when the effects of neck compression can be serious and life threatening (doi:10.1136/bmj.s275).1In general, do we sufficiently challenge normalised behaviour in ourselves or others? Four doctors and two nurses were charged with criminal damage for breaking windows at the European headquarters of the financial services firm JP Morgan in London—considered to be the largest financier of fossil fuels to the tune of several billion dollars, including projects in the Amazon.2 A jury trial in 2024 returned a hung verdict. A retrial has now delivered a unanimous jury verdict of not guilty (doi:10.1136/bmj.s323).3The...

In September 2025 a patient sent a digital inquiry to the GP Rachel James’s surgery in south London. The patient had presented at an emergency department the night before, had been discharged, and was asking for an urgent referral to a specialist. James was able to access the emergency department’s notes stating the diagnosis and advice for the patient to contact their GP for a routine referral if symptoms worsened.James messaged the department back, saying that she and the patient could talk about the issue at an appointment the patient had booked on the surgery’s system for the following month. Two days later, however, the patient submitted another inquiry through the Accurx digital communication tool, begging the GP for a referral because of abnormal results from their hospital blood test.The patient’s concern and persistence stemmed from them being able to see their blood results on MyChart, a patient facing digital...

The General Medical Council (GMC) is appealing to the High Court against a decision clearing a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon of support for terrorism and for the proscribed organisation Hamas.A medical practitioners tribunal last month found that allegations against Ghassan Abu-Sitta over a 2018 newspaper article and two reposts on Twitter (now X) were not proved.1 But the doctors’ regulator will argue at the High Court that the article and one retweet did support violence and/or terrorism and that the other retweet supported a proscribed organisation and terrorism.However, the GMC is not challenging the tribunal’s decision that the comments in the article were not proved to be objectively antisemitic.A GMC spokesperson said, “Exercising our right of appeal is something we do with great care and only after detailed consideration. Our focus is protecting the public, and we are satisfied given the nature of the allegations that it is right that we...