There is great reluctance in Britain to consider any other kind of funding for the NHS apart from taxation, but we are surely close to a time when we will […]
Columnists
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Terrorism
The Latin word “terror,” from the hypothetical Indo-European root TER, implying trembling, meant “the fact or quality of inspiring terror” (Oxford Latin Dictionary) and a person or thing that causes […]
Richard Smith: What causes cholera? A Victorian debate
Yesterday I was in The Cholera Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh; today I’m reading about a highly emotional debate about the causes and treatment of cholera that took place in India […]
Mary E Black: How data science will change public health
We are living in a perfect storm: vast amounts of data and rapidly increasing, cheap computing power. The world is shifting towards basing decisions even more on data. I believe, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Let’s twist again
The Indo-European root UER was not the only one that connoted twisting and turning. Others were PLEK, STREB, TERQ or TORQ, TERK, and UEI. Let’s start with PLEK, which in […]
William Cayley: To doctor is to diagnose—part two
Having recently posted some thoughts on the continuing centrality of diagnosis in doctoring, I was happy to see the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report “Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare.” I […]
Mary E Black: Data—a love story
I remember my first data extraction. As a clinician I enjoyed creating good clinical notes, and was adept at digesting fat files of written scrawl, laboratory records, and referral letters—for […]
Richard Smith: The Closer We Get
The Closer We Get shows the last months of a woman’s life after she has had a stroke and tells the complex story of a family as they gather around […]
William Cayley: The value of the tweet
I’ve only recently begun tweeting, but have already been struck by the challenge of sometimes trying to convey complex ideas in 144 characters or less. The combinations of abbreviations, “hashtags,” […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . A full bladder
Although we don’t nowadays call bile gall, we still call the sac in which it is stored the gallbladder. “Bladder” is one of the early medical words listed in the […]