Comments on: Richard Smith: Six memos on the future of healthcare

By: Marco Milano

Marco Milano — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:05:00 +0000

A video about the two days at Forte dei Marmi is now available at Scienceonthenet (the italian web journal for science and scientific research) with an article wrote in memory of Alessandro Liberati:

http://www.scienzainrete.it/en/content/article/research-and-communication-preventable-uncertainty

Thank you for remembering him and his disease experience.

By: Mathew Jose

Mathew Jose — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:25:00 +0000

Don’t know when Alessandero debated Hans-George Gadamer but Hans-George may have a point. As I was learning my bits in medicine 35 odd years ago from ‘decorated municipal gothics’ I found patients just treated them like ‘Gods’ even when science I learned felt they were done and outdated. Simply over the years of practice they developed a great relationship with their patients. I doubt ,though,if it exists in that form in today’s world of EBM where improved outcomes and long term benefits weigh most among medical fraternity and lay public.

By: Gabriele Romani

Gabriele Romani — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:13:00 +0000

Quickness. Calvino in six memos for next millennium wrote: “from my youth on, my personal motto has been the old Latin tag: festina lente, hurry slowly.”
what attracted Calvino, even more than the words, was the suggestivenes of its emblema. for example the butterfly and crab that illustrate festina lente in a sixteen century collection of emblems,
calvino also wrote: “butterfly and crab are both bizarre, both symmetrical in shape, and between them estabilish an unexpected kind of harmony”.

FESTINA LENTE-hurry slowly should be the motto of policymakers.
researchers and policymakers as the butterfly and crab in harmony.

By: Michael Power

Michael Power — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 10:07:00 +0000

Richard, Thanks for a timely reminder of Alessandro Liberati’s work and life.

But, you suffered from a minor misrememberance. Alessandro’s provocative question “How far can we tolerate the butterfly behaviour of researchers, moving onto the next flower well before the previous one has been fully exploited?” was made, not in the Lancet in 2011, but in the BMJ in 2004:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC351869/
Best wishes and happy blogging for 2013!