One of the experiences that has made me think the most in the past week was having my shoes shined in Queretaro, Mexico. It was the lavish care, almost love, […]
Columnists
David Kerr: TV dinners
Almost every home in the country has one and unlike the background population they have tended to become slimmer and slimmer over recent years. The television set has managed to […]
Richard Smith: The 20 foot fence between the rich and poor worlds
I’m standing looking at a twenty foot high fence that at night is lit as brightly as daylight. It snakes away over dry hills to both east and west like […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Martin Luther King day and health inequalities in the US
Martin Luther King day provides an opportunity to reflect on the civil rights movement as well as the broader issue of inequalities that face every nation. Because King’s “I have […]
Marge Berer: The breast implant fiasco: a scandal of private medicine
So, the silicone’s hit the fan. The use of industrial-grade silicone intended for mattresses, the possible fraud in hiding information from inspectors at production stage, and the failure in quality control in […]
Liz Wager: Do we need to rethink our approaches to research misconduct and research integrity?
Yesterday I took part in a joint BMJ/COPE meeting on research misconduct. The discussion set me thinking about factors that create and sustain healthy research environments. When we talk about […]
Martin McShane: Incentives to transform primary care
I was fortunate to be able to listen to Danna Safran from Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Massachusetts at a recent King’s Fund conference. She was talking about the […]
Muir Gray: The need for systems
“All of a sudden a big mealie pudden came flying through the air.” This is the opening line of a Glaswegian song, which only gets worse, about an assault by […]
Richard Smith: Medical students and refugees: mutual benefit
One of the worries about medical students is that they are not well connected to the real world. The come mostly from privileged backgrounds, enter the monastery of the medical […]
Douglas Noble on the Falconer report
Last year I blogged about the commission set up by Lord Falconer on assisted suicide. It was clear from the outset that this commission was fatally flawed, not least because […]