🎉 100 Bubble Wraps later… 🎉

The hundredth Bubble Wrap

It started, as many good things do, with a simple idea.

What if someone just picked one paper…

…and told us why it mattered?

Not a full systematic review.
Not a dense journal club.
Just a short, sharp take - something you could read between patients, on a tram, or with a cup of coffee before a shift.

This month, we're proudly publishing our 100th Bubble Wrap.

And somewhere along the way, something interesting happened.

More than just summaries

Bubble Wrap was never really about summarising papers.

It became something else.

A place where clinicians said:

“This caught my attention. This might change how we think.”

Over the years, it’s been shaped and steered by people who care deeply about how we engage with evidence:

Henry Goldstein
Grace Leo
And now, Vicki Currie

Each bringing their own lens.
Each helping us get a little better at asking:

👉 Does this paper actually matter?

Alongside that, Jaen Toelen and Anke Raaijmakers have taken things a step further with Bubble Wrap Plus - curating the month’s paediatric literature into something readable, navigable, and - crucially - usable.

Because the problem isn’t that there’s no evidence.

It’s that there’s too much of it.

Reading is a skill (and most of us were never taught it)

We talk a lot about evidence-based medicine.

But very few of us were ever properly taught how to read a paper.

We default to things like:

scanning the abstract
trusting the conclusion
assuming statistical significance equals clinical importance

But the real question is simpler - and harder:

👉 Does this change what I do on my next shift?

That’s the thread running through Bubble Wrap.

And if you want to sharpen that skill, there are a few posts worth revisiting.

Start here

👉 How to Read a Scientific Paper

If you’ve ever felt unsure where to even begin, this is your roadmap.

It moves you beyond passive reading…

…and into active questioning.

👉 POOS, LOOS, DOOS and MOOS

Dennis Ren then breaks down outcomes in a way that actually sticks.

Because not all outcomes are created equal.

Some matter to researchers.
Some matter to journals.
And some matter to patients.

Learning to tell the difference is one of the highest-leverage skills you can develop.

And if you want to go deeper…

You can watch an EBM masterclass with Ken Milne - breaking down how to approach the literature in a way that actually translates to clinical practice.

(And yes — he’ll be joining us in Glasgow, alongside Dennis.)

From page to practice

One of the things I love most about Bubble Wrap is that it closes the gap between:

📄 the paper

and

👩‍⚕️ the patient in front of you

It reminds us that critical appraisal isn’t an academic exercise.

It’s a clinical one.

And this year… we’re taking it live

This year, Bubble Wrap is stepping off the page and onto the stage.

At DFTB26 in Glasgow, we’ll be bringing together three brilliant clinicians to do what Bubble Wrap does best — but live:

Victoria Monnelly - Top 5 Neonatal papers
Sarah McNab - Top 5 General Paeds papers
Vicki Currie - Top 5 PEM papers

No fluff.
No filler.
Just the papers that matter - and why.

Come and be part of it

If you’ve ever:

wondered whether a paper really changes anything
wanted to get better at reading the literature
or just enjoy learning alongside people who care about doing this well

Then come and join us in Glasgow.

Because the goal was never to read more papers.

It was to read the right ones…

…and to understand them just well enough to make a difference.

See you there,

Andy

Don't Forget The Bubbles