I’m a great complainer. As I have written before, I believe that we have a duty to complain in order to improve services and products. We usually complain after a poor […]
Columnists
Daniel Sokol: War Doctor—haunting, disturbing, and uplifting
There is a certain moral simplicity to medicine: a person with a set of skills helps another who is suffering. In contrast, in war men inflict suffering on each other. […]
Abraar Karan: Don’t let your institution define you
The institution doesn’t make the doctor, the doctors make the institution, says Abraar Karan […]
Richard Smith: Stephen Lock, one of the best BMJ editors, is 90
“Editors of The BMJ are alternating fools and bastards,” said Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor of The BMJ, who has a gift for memorable axioms. Stephen, who will be […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Minimal clinically important difference
Six weeks ago I discussed minimalism, two weeks ago the meaninglessness of “meaningful”, and last week “clinically meaningful”, the last of which really means “clinically important”. Now all of this […]
Giles Maskell: How can we combat fraud in the NHS?
Some of our efforts in combating fraud should go into attempting to shift the moral baseline of the majority […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Medically meaningful
I suggested last week that “meaningful” more often means “meaningless” than any of the other possible meanings that it has acquired. As for the so-called “meaningful votes” in the House […]
Peter Brindley and Matt Morgan: On the frontlines of the opiate crisis—no easy answers
Like the 1930’s comedy brothers Groucho, Chicho and Harpo, the political theorist Karl Marx was a funny old chap. The man who penned Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto actually […]
Keep out of reach of children—the case for increasing the legal age for tobacco purchase to 21
Increasing the legal age for tobacco purchase should be combined with other measures to reduce smoking rates in young people […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Truly meaningful?
Recently, we have heard a lot, perhaps too much, about votes in the House of Commons, all of which, including two so-called “meaningful” votes, turned out to obfuscate further whatever […]