Spectrum originally meant the same as spectre: a ghost. It was appropriated by Newton in 1671 to describe how sunlight passing through a prism “exhibited… a Spectrum of divers colours” […]
Month: February 2018
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Medical catachresis—ambiguity
Catachresis, the mistaken use of one term for another, can arise through confusibility, which I discussed last week, or through ambiguity. Ambiguity (Latin amb-, implying both ways, + agere to […]
Compassionate leadership has a pivotal role in tackling bullying in healthcare
Bullying is a patient safety issue and often a signal of wider cultural issues within an organisation. Compassionate leadership can change culture, empower staff to speak up, and address bullying […]
Giles Maskell: Impossible errors
Hindsight bias is a real and very powerful phenomenon, and not just in radiology […]
Fiona Sim: The Winter Olympics and junk food—who cares about the health legacy?
It would be sad and ironic if the main legacy of this year’s Winter Olympics is to advance unhealthy eating and obesity […]
Tom Jefferson and Peter Doshi: RIP PubMed commons
Four years ago, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a pilot project to “leverage the social power of the internet to encourage constructive criticism and high quality discussions.” The service […]
Chaitanya Haldipur: Do we need to test the competency of older doctors?
We tend to revere our older colleagues for their clinical wisdom, but this should not compromise patient care […]
David Oliver: A matter of trust—doctors, the NHS, patients, and the public
The public still have high levels of trust in doctors as a profession, but we must not take that trust for granted […]
Michel Kazatchkine: Winds of hope on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia?
The announcement by UNAIDS that some 21 million people living with HIV are now on treatment uncovers an extraordinary achievement and one of the great global health milestones of this […]
Mihály Kökény and Gyula Kincses: Health can be a unifying issue in an era of polarised politics
Hungary is experiencing a deepening crisis in healthcare, but it is possible for parties of different interests to work together […]