University rankings need a rethink

Cuts spark university rethink

Britain's new government is thinking aloud about radical changes to university funding and other countries are also considering the future.

Education: the need for a rethink.

Mark Twain's observation about the long term effects of soap and education appeals to our common sense, but it is difficult to assess the true influence of these simple processes on society. The same is true in rheumatology. Most of us believe in the benefits of improving the rheumatological knowledge of doctors and patients, but it is difficult to prove that education is effective. What do pat...

Urological education: Do we need a rethink?

A different approach to university rankings

Educationalists are well able to find fault with rankings on numerous grounds and may reject them outright. However, given that they are here to stay, we could also try to improve them wherever possible. All currently published university rankings combine various measures to produce an overall score using an additive approach. The individual measures are first normalized to make the figures ‘co...

Ethical Off-label Drug use: Need for a Rethink?

Off-label drug use is unavoidable, especially in children. Legal justice originates from ethical justice; therefore, ethical off-label drug use can be considered legal. We share our successful experiences with this issue in China, which may provide a reference to Indian healthcare professionals, to develop a common executable standard to be applied to evaluate the off-label drug use in clinical...