Kamran Abbasi

Kamran Abbasi is a physician, visiting professor at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London, executive editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM), journalist, cricket writer and broadcaster, who contributed to the expansion of international editions of the BMJ and has argued that medicine cannot exist in a political void.

Kamran Abbasi
Kamran Abbasi (2019)
Born
Lahore, Pakistan
Education
Occupation
Known for
Medical career
ProfessionPhysician
ResearchMedicine

He was raised in Yorkshire, graduated in medicine from Leeds School of Medicine in 1992 and worked in general medicine before commencing a career in journal editing in 1997, beginning with the BMJ, followed by the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and later the JRSM. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of London.

Abbasi has been a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine and has created e-learning resources for professional development of doctors, including BMJ Learning and the Royal Society of Medicine's video lecture service.

He has authored books on cricket; Zindabad; The English Chronicles: a Modern History of Pakistan Cricket, published in 2012 and Englistan: An immigrant’s journey on the turbulent winds of Pakistan cricket in 2020.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has written on the UK's response to COVID-19, including the provision of personal protective equipment for frontline staff.

Early life and education
Leeds School of Medicine

Kamran Abbasi was born in Lahore, Pakistan and moved to Rotherham, Yorkshire in 1974.[1][2] He completed his early education at Oakwood School before attending the Thomas Rotherham College, both in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. In 1992, he graduated in medicine from Leeds School of Medicine.[3]

Career

In 1997, following five years in internal medicine in both Yorkshire and London,[3][4] he joined the BMJ from the Royal London and St Bartholomew's Hospitals. He took up the post of editorial registrar and then assistant editor, before becoming deputy editor in 2002 and acting editor in 2004. He was influenced by editor Richard Smith.[3]

Global health and politics

In 1999, he published a series of six articles in the BMJ looking at the role of the World Bank in global health.[5][6][7] A year later, he was appointed editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.[3][8]

Abbasi became the BMJ's executive editor for content, developing the journal's expansion internationally, digitally, and in print,[4] particularly the BMJ International editions,[9] which he considers his greatest achievement.[3] The first of the themed issues was in 2003,[10] and shortly after, he was one of the three main organisers of the BMJ’s first international theme issue on South Asia, where investment in primary care and particularly the education of girls in Sri Lanka and Kerala was shown to be beneficial.[11] Their interest and continued work in South Asia has led to the BMJ offering a dedicated page to South Asia on their website since 2013.[12]

In October 2004, while he was acting editor of the BMJ, Abbasi became the recipient of an unusually large number of responses to a BMJ article written by Derek Summerfield, who published his personal view over what he saw as organised violations of the fourth Geneva Convention by the Israeli army in Gaza and their effects on public health. The reaction to that article was later analysed by Karl Sabbagh and revealed the hostility that editors can receive when publishing on a sensitive issue.[13] In response to the messages sent to the journal's website and the over 1000 emails sent directly to Abbasi, a sample number were published on-line within 24 hours of submission. Sabbagh explained that the published messages "were a skewed sample of what had been received, as abusive and obscene contributions were not posted",[13] In response to these messages, many of which "abused the BMJ or Abbasi personally",[13] Abbasi published an editorial entitled: “Should journals mix medicine and politics?” Abbasi noted that the messages were "largely biased and inflammatory on both sides"[14] and that a number of people felt that dialogue could resolve the conflict. He specified that “in a state of conflict [those] views will be sometime abrasive and unpalatable" and argued that medicine cannot exist in a political void.[13][14]

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he published his commentary on the "scandals of COVID-19", which included the topics of personal protective equipment for frontline NHS staff,[15][16] the UK's preparedness for the pandemic,[17] and the fear of going into hospital.[18] In May 2020, he co-authored a paper titled "The UK’s public health response to covid-19".[19] Together with Bobbie Jacobson from the Johns Hopkins University and Gabriel Scally, they described the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as "too little, too late, too flawed", with no adequate plan for community-based case-finding, testing, and contact tracing.[20] Their findings were published in the New Statesman,[20] and discussed in Medscape,[21] the British Journal of Social Psychology[22] and the Practice Nurse.[23] His editorials relating to COVID-19 for the JRSM appear in a series titled Spotlight on COVID-19.[24]

Other journals

Abbasi has been editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine since 2005.[9][25] He also founded BMJ Learning, an e-learning resource.[9]

Other roles

He has been appointed visiting professor at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London,[26] member of the General Advisory Council of the King's Fund, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of London, and patron of the South Asian Health Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of London.[4][27]

He has been a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine and has created three e-learning resources for professional development of doctors, including BMJ Learning and the Royal Society of Medicine's video lecture service.[4]

He has consulted for a number of organisations including Harvard University, the NHS, the World Health Organization and McKinsey & Co.[4]

He has also made contributions on radio and television,[4] particularly with Mark Porter. In this role, Abbasi has acted as a sceptic to BBC Radio 4's weekly medical programme, Inside Health.[28] He also writes for Dawn, a Pakistani English-language newspaper.[9]

Cricket

Following cricket since the 1970s, Abbasi has been an international writer on Pakistan cricket since 1996, starting as a blogger for Cricinfo.com with a blog called Pak Spin, and with a particular interest in the politics of cricket.[29][30][31]

He was the first Asian columnist in an English cricket publication when he started writing for Wisden Cricket Monthly.[9] In 2000, in one Wisden Cricket entry, he reported on Hansie Cronje and the South Africa cricket match fixing and responded by saying that the "enigma of match fixing will remain. But the reflex judgement that white is good and brown is bad is now less sustainable than it ever was. For that at least, thank you, Hansie".[32]

In 2004, he co-authored a paper on the influence of a 1986 Pakistani victory in cricket over India on subsequent matches up to 2003.[33] In 2012, he published a book titled The English Chronicles: Zindabad: A Modern History of Pakistan Cricket.[29] Eight years later he wrote Englistan: An immigrant’s journey on the turbulent winds of Pakistan cricket.[34]

Selected publications

Articles
  • Culliford, L. (1998). "Film: The Knowledge of Healing". British Medical Journal. 317 (7172): 1599. doi:10.1136/bmj.317.7172.1599c. PMC 1114414. PMID 9836690.
  • Abbasi, K. (1999). "The World Bank and World Health" (PDF). British Medical Journal. 318 (7187): 865–869. doi:10.1136/bmj.318.7187.865. PMC 1115285. PMID 10092271.
  • Abbasi, Kamran; Khan, Khalid S (2004). "India versus Pakistan and the power of a six: an analysis of cricket results". British Medical Journal. 328 (7443): 800. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7443.800. PMC 383375. PMID 15070636.
  • Jain, A; Nundy, S; Abbasi, K (2014). "Corruption: medicine's dirty open secret". British Medical Journal. 348: g4184. doi:10.1136/bmj.g4184. PMID 24965786..
  • Abbasi, Kamran (2004). "Should journals mix medicine and politics?". British Medical Journal. 329 (7474). doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.0-g.
  • Abbasi, Kamran (2017). "A future of technology and other humans". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 110 (7): 263. doi:10.1177/0141076817720629. PMC 5524266. PMID 28718386.
  • Abbasi, Kamran (2018). "How to fund the NHS". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 111 (6): 187. doi:10.1177/0141076818782032. PMC 6022890. PMID 29877775.
  • Abbasi, Kamran (2019). "We need fewer leaders and more followers". British Medical Journal: l348. doi:10.1136/bmj.l348.

BMJ theme issues

Journalism

Books

Book chapter
  • "Younis Khan" in The Shorter Wisden 2017: The Best Writing from Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2017 edited by Lawrence Booth

References
  1. Abbasi, Kamran (24 September 2020). "Why Asian and Black players have felt alienated in Yorkshire cricket". www.espncricinfo.com. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  2. Abbasi, Kamran (19 August 2006). "Cricket: British Asians in cricket". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  3. "Kamran Abbasi". The Lancet. 364 (9435): 657. August 2004. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16877-3. ISSN 0140-6736. S2CID 54424970.
  4. "Kamran Abbasi | The British Medial Journal". www.bmj.com. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  5. Simmons, P. J.; Oudraat, Chantal de Jonge (2012). Managing Global Issues: Lessons Learned. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 9780870033360.
  6. Stott, Robin (1999). "The World Bank: Friend or foe to the Poor?". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 318 (7187): 822–823. doi:10.1136/bmj.318.7187.822. ISSN 0959-8138. JSTOR 25184112. PMC 1115258. PMID 10092238.(subscription required)
  7. Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology. Duke University Press. 2006. p. 28. ISBN 9780822363057.
  8. Ferriman, Annabel (15 July 2004). "BMJ group appoints acting editor and acting chief executive". BMJ. 329 (7458): 128.3. doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7458.128-b. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 478251.
  9. "Debating Matters - People - Kamran Abbasi". archive.debatingmatters.com. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  10. Group, British Medical Journal Publishing (18 January 2003). "Forthcoming BMJ theme issues (provisional dates and titles)". BMJ. 326 (7381): 160. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7381.160. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 1125240.
  11. Smith, Richard (1 April 2004). "Towards a global social contract". BMJ. 328 (7443). doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7443.0-g. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 383356.
  12. "BMJ in South Asia | The BMJ". www.bmj.com. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  13. Sabbagh, Karl (25 February 2009). "Perils of criticising Israel". British Medical Journal. 338: a2066. doi:10.1136/bmj.a2066. ISSN 0959-8138. PMID 19244219. S2CID 7160405.
  14. Feldman, Arthur M. (October 2014). "Mixing Politics and Medicine: A Case Study". Clinical and Translational Science. 7 (5): 351–353. doi:10.1111/cts.12233. ISSN 1752-8054. PMC 5350878. PMID 25348106.
  15. Hadi, Sibte (20 April 2020). "Re: The scandals of covid-19". The British Medical Journal. 369. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1434.
  16. "The 50 most influential BAME people in health". Health Service Journal. 7 October 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  17. Cheung, Bernard M Y (19 April 2020). "Re: The scandals of covid-19". The British Medical Journal. 369. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1434.
  18. Bhanot, Shiv Mohan (22 April 2020). "Are our hospitals and clinics Hotbeds of COVID19 ?". The British Medical Journal. 369. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1434.
  19. Scally, Gabriel; Jacobson, Bobbie; Abbasi, Kamran (15 May 2020). "The UK's public health response to covid-19". British Medical Journal. 369: m1932. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1932. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 32414712. S2CID 218657917.
  20. "Too little, too late, too flawed: the BMJ on the UK response to Covid-19". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  21. Locke, Tim (16 May 2020). "UK COVID-19 Daily: 'Stop Squabbling' Over Schools Reopening". Medscape. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  22. Drury, John; Reicher, Stephen; Stott, Clifford (2020). "COVID-19 in context: Why do people die in emergencies? It's probably not because of collective psychology". British Journal of Social Psychology. 59 (3): 686–693. doi:10.1111/bjso.12393. ISSN 2044-8309. PMC 7323329. PMID 32543713.
  23. "Practice Nurse". practicenurse.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  24. "JRSM editor Dr Kamran Abbasi". www.rsm.ac.uk. Royal Society of Medicine. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  25. Sokol, Daniel K. (2011). Doing Clinical Ethics: A Hands-on Guide for Clinicians and Others. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 36–37. ISBN 9789400727823.
  26. "People | Faculty of Medicine | Imperial College London". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  27. "ESPNcricinfo - Cricket Teams, Scores, Stats, News, Fixtures, Results, Tables". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  28. "BBC Radio 4 - Inside Health, Stem cells, Functional disorders, Epilepsy, Stoptober, Whiplash". BBC. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  29. "Zindabad: The English Chronicles: Zindabad: A Modern History of Pakistan Cricket | IndieBound.org". www.indiebound.org. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  30. Ezekiel, Gulu (2011). Cricket and Beyond. Prabhat Prakashan. p. 92. ISBN 9788184301007.
  31. Booth, Lawrence (2008). Cricket, Lovely Cricket?: An Addict's Guide to the World's Most Exasperating Game. Yellow Jersey Press. p. 234. ISBN 9780224079143.
  32. Vahed, Goolam (July 2013). "Cricket and corruption: the post-apartheid relationship between India and South Africa within and beyond the boundary". Diaspora Studies. 6 (2): 80–91. doi:10.1080/09739572.2013.853439. ISSN 0973-9572. S2CID 154210055.
  33. Voracek, Martin; Formann, Anton K. (April 2006). "The Miandad Effect Reconsidered: Analysis of Pakistan's Cricket Performance 1952 to 2005". Perceptual and Motor Skills. 102 (2): 323–326. doi:10.2466/pms.102.2.323-326. ISSN 0031-5125. PMID 16826652. S2CID 21465073.
  34. Abbasi, Kamran (30 August 2020). "Comment: Rizwan's star rises in England". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 15 September 2020.

Further reading
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