Abstract
Lectures and talks remain central to dissemination of new research findings and novel clinical concepts. Major new research in particular is often ‘breaking news’ at specialty conferences. In its early days, the Royal Society of Medicine was a regular venue for such announcements by means of a lecture or talk. The multispecialty nature of the RSM was a specific attraction. Today, the RSM remains a place for valuable conversations between disciplines even though new research tends to be announced elsewhere.
Nonetheless, the RSM enjoys a thriving academic programme, put together by dedicated specialists and administrative staff. Education and debate are now the remit but in the course of any year, any week, even any day, many interesting and important lectures and talks are delivered at Wimpole Street. The RSM’s video service is one way of capturing the best of these and sharing this clinical wisdom more widely. You can access this service simply enough by visiting the RSM’s website (https://videos.rsm.ac.uk).
JRSM is, of course, willing to publish content from the RSM’s educational programme. While JRSM maintains its editorial independence and caters for clinical medicine and surgery beyond the world of the RSM, the lectures and meetings organised by the society are too good to ignore.
Earlier this year, we made a clear decision to work more closely with the RSM’s academic department to harvest some of the best lectures and meetings for publication in JRSM. You will see this content in various guises. Our ongoing series on population healthcare, compiled by Muir Gray, is one such example. 1
Another outlet is a new feature that starts this month. RSM Lectures will appear in the Commentary section of JRSM and publish the text of some of the best talks delivered at the society. Inevitably, these will be published with some minor editorial changes to ensure the content is fit for print, but in general, the article will be a close transcript of the presented lecture.
The first of these RSM Lectures is a provocative piece by Charles Fordham von Reyn, in which he tackles the difficult topic of immunisation against tuberculosis and suggests that the role of BCG may be undervalued. You can decide for yourself by turning to von Reyn’s lecture, 2 which we hope will be the first of many to share the richness of the RSM’s educational programme with JRSM readers.