I’m in the middle of an exciting and depressing thought. Basically, that with the demise in the West of theology we have no valid way of talking coherently about existence. I know this is true from a practical point of view because writing this blog is difficult. I am forever stumbling over words and concepts to express my experience of living in the shadow of death. Psychobabbling. So what makes it so hard (apart from my literary ineptitude)? more…

It’s time to tackle Richard Smith’s third request for information about living with advanced cancer: what’s maddening about it?

Hmmm … where to start? There are so many maddening things about cancer.

Some are obvious: not being able to control your destiny in the illusory way you are used to. Not being able to work. Being too tired to see friends. Not having children. Not being able to adopt children because they’ve been through enough trauma, usually, without you dying on them. more…

The recent research study published in the BMJ entitled “Ethnic stereotypes and the underachievement of UK medical students from ethnic minorities: qualitative study” discussed the underperformance of (presumably South) Asian medical students. It suggested that stereotypes of Asian students may damage their relationships with clinical teachers, resulting in their relatively poor performance in exams.

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Recent changes to the BMJ’s copyright licence and the information it includes in research articles means that they can be formally listed as open access articles in PubMed Central and other repositories. So should we change the labels of open access research articles on our website from “free” to “open access”? more…

I wasn’t a bit surprised to read the report cited in this week’s journal about the use of jargon in public health. In fact, I rather wish I’d come up with the idea for the study myself. more…

I’m just back from a week’s holiday in Romania. If your idea of a relaxing break is designer shopping, things that run on time and predictability, then I recommend you stick to Switzerland but for unspoilt mountain scenery, delicious milk still warm from the cow* and an even warmer welcome from spontaneously hospitable and generous people, then you can’t beat the remoter parts of Moldavia. more…

On July 31, two of Canada’s biggest tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd and Rothmans Benson and Hedges Inc, agreed to pay $300 million in fines and an additional $815 million in civil damages over the next 15 years for their admission that both companies aided persons to sell and be in possession of tobacco manufactured in Canada that was not packed and was not stamped in compliance with the Canadian Federal Excise Act. more…

Lightning struck my home recently and the power surge resulted in my computer crashing. I lost a small file that kept track of several dozen emails (out of the well over 4000) that i had received in the last two months and that were still awaiting a reply from me. These emails were ones that I needed to respond to, but just not urgently, so my practice has been to accumulate them until a particular day when I don’t have much else to do. Alas, in two months, such a day had not occurred. more…

I am forty-four. Even allowing for the decade or so that modern medicine has added to our Biblical three score years and ten, I am, statistically, over half way through the journey. There are times when I feel it. Not so much physically: never having been much of an athlete the decline of my body has been too gradual to offend much more than my vanity. But there is something I have noticed that I do regret: a slow shrinking or withdrawal of my capacity for wonder; a retreating sense of the sheer marvellous strangeness of life. It feels like a significant loss. more…

Last week I attended the 29th Asian Medical Students’ Conference (AMSC) in Tokyo along with 450 other medical students like me from 20 countries in Asia and Pacific. Our aim: to fight non-communicable diseases and promote a healthy lifestyle in the Asia and Pacific. more…