Blogs@BJUI

Wikipedia defines social media as a means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. In 1965 Moore’s law stated that the volume required for a memory chip or processor would decrease by 50% every 18 months. This predicted exponential development rate has continued for the last 50 years and can be most visibly seen in everyday items such as smart phones or digital cameras. Whilst there is no clear explanation…

I recall participating many elective major procedures on Friday nights and Saturday mornings during my residency training, thinking to myself that not only should I be home, but this just can’t be good for the patient…can it? Well, apparently not. A new population-based study by Aylin et al. published in the British Medical Journal suggests that patients undergoing surgery on Fridays and weekends have significantly higher of both 2-day perioperative mortality as well as 30-day mortality. Utilizing…

The study by Neheman et al. follows up on an idea first proposed in 2009 by Gettman and Swain to adapt wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) technology for cystoscopy. Unlike the gastrointestinal tract where the small bowel is not endoscopically accessible making WCE appealing and advantageous, the idea of wireless capsule cystoscopy (WCC) competes with a minor procedure, office cystoscopy, that does not require anaesthesia or sedation and takes only a few minutes to perform. Furthermore, although…

When Prokar Dasgupta assumed the role of new Editor-in-Chief of the BJUI in January 2013, he outlined his vision and some of the major changes that the Journal would make as it transitioned to a new editorial team. After 10 years of progress under John Fitzpatrick, it was clear that we are now working in a much-changed publishing landscape, one which will change even more in the next few years. In particular, the way in which medical professionals receive information and interact with colleagues,…

In recent decades, the detection of small renal masses (SRMs) has steadily increased with an accompanying shift of treatment towards partial nephrectomy (PN). Indications for PN have successfully expanded to more challenging cases, and robot-assisted PN (RAPN), in particular, has attracted increasing attention (BJUI, Eur Urol); however, despite excellent cure rates for PN, parallel to the increasing number of patients with SRMs undergoing PN, cases of ipsilateral recurrence after PN are also expected…

The BJUI has been very pleased with the large amount of social media activity we have seen across our various platforms since January 2013 when the new-look Journal was introduced. Editor-in-Chief, Prokar Dasgupta, has decreed that he wants the BJUI to be “the most-read surgical journal on the web”, and has recognised the key role that social media plays in realizing this ambition. At the same time, the social media revolution that has engrossed Gen Y and Gen Z and which has transformed the way…

I was at an international cricket match, when during one of the very few lulls in the action I noticed a camera operator.  He was riding a Segway around the field in order to get close to the action and vary his angle for the viewers at home. After observing the function of this Segway-Human-Camera complex, it struck me that the only superfluous component in the system was the man with the beer gut and ill-fitting shorts.  All he did was point, focus, and zoom a camera. This can just as easily…

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been an established and effective treatment for men with asymptomatic metastatic prostate cancer for decades. Randomized trials have shown significant survival benefits when ADT is used, coupled with radiotherapy, for patients with locally advanced disease; however it is often used in patients where the benefits are less clear, such as for a rising serum PSA level after radical prostatectomy, and among patients who elect to take a more conservative approach…

For the first time, the BJUI and our friends at the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS), joined forces at the Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association to stage a satellite session focusing on some interesting areas of urology. While both BAUS and BJUI have long had strong relations and have worked together on many occasions, this was the first time we had an opportunity to present a full afternoon of plenary content at the AUA. This year’s AUA took place in beautiful…