Every researcher has exasperating stories of the glacial pace of research publication. But as a former research journal editor of 17 years, I know that researchers’ ideas on what constitutes […]
Columnists
Desmond O’Neill: Striking doctors and a cruel cut
The strike was so much more straightforward in 1987. I was then a trainee member of the Council of the Irish Medical Organization and our task was to change an […]
Richard Smith: Medical journals: “a colossal problem of quality”
We knew that we had “a colossal problem of quality” when we began the peer review congresses in 1989, said Drummond Rennie, creator of the congresses, at the seventh congress […]
Tiago Villanueva: How can doctors avoid becoming deskilled whilst working in non-clinical roles?
My main concern about working in a fulltime non-clinical position is becoming a less competent doctor by the time I start to see patients again (whenever and wherever that is). […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Life without health insurance in the US
If you are a UK citizen, you probably think we are barbarians. Go ahead and say it, “How can you be a wealthy nation spending so much on healthcare and […]
Martin McKee: What on earth were the LibDems thinking? The tobacco industry and the party conference
Once, in a very different time long ago, no one would have seen anything wrong. An organisation purporting to represent Britain’s small shopkeepers set up stall at a party political […]
Richard Smith: Learning at a meeting on global health
Earlier this week I attended a meeting at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on global health to beat my drum on the importance of non-communicable disease (NCD). Others […]
Mary E Black: Moving public health contracts out of the NHS and over to local authorities
The problem with us Brits is that when handed the impossible to deliver we actually go ahead and do it, methodically, honestly, and with many a sincere task and finish […]
Richard Smith: The dangers of a moustache
A kiss without a moustache, the proverb says, is like an egg without salt and, added Jean Paul Sartre, like good without evil. The proverb doesn’t make clear which kisser […]
William Cayley: Does uncertainty and fear of the unknown drive overdiagnosis?
Edward Davies hits the nail on the head: “The fear of both patient and doctor can sometimes override the best knowledge, research, and information known to man.” I do not […]