The changes the government is proposing in response to the NHS Future Forum might satisfy most of the people for some of the time but their implementation immediately struck me […]
Columnists
Sandra Lako: Why do children come to the hospital so late?
One night, not too long ago, four children died in the emergency room at the Children’s Hospital. Two of them had been sick for more than two weeks before coming […]
Richard Smith: Prevention of diabetes – from impossible to widely available in 30 years
In the 1980s it was conventional wisdom that type 2 diabetes couldn’t be prevented, said Michael Engelgau of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when I chatted to […]
Muir Gray: Ann McPherson – trilingual clinician
The obituary by Charles Warlow of Ann McPherson showed that she was not only a bilingual but a trilingual clinician, and we have to ensure that her example will stimulate […]
Martin McShane: Director’s cut
I picked up a book recently co-authored by Colin Price, the essence of which can be found in this slide deck. One of the key points made is that if […]
David Kerr: Geoenvironmental medicine and technology
The world did not end last month after all. Harold Camping, the founder of the Family Radio Network purchased space on 1,200 billboards across the United States proclaiming doomsday for […]
Desmond O’Neill: A rare scientific hiccough at the science gallery
Despite a surprisingly large scientific heritage [1] , the Republic of Ireland has no science museum. Nature abhorring a vacuum, an innovative avenue for celebrating science was created by the opening […]
Richard Smith: Surgical editor loses job through overselling semen
I’ve a collection of stories editors of medical publications coming unstuck, often in bizarre ways, but the story of Lazar Greenfield departing Surgery News and causing a whole issue to […]
Tiago Villanueva: Critical appraisal of medical schools around the world
Apart from universities as a whole, the recently released QS World University Rankings also include a list of their selection of the top 200 medical and life sciences schools in […]
Richard Smith: A thousand year old village in China
My first inkling that this wasn’t going to be a routine village visit was when I noticed that our coach had a police escort. Then when we arrived at the […]