After the thumb, the index finger, the middle finger, and the ring finger, we come to the fifth digit, the little finger. It was known in Latin as digitus minimus, […]
Columnists
Kieran Walsh: Your new interdisciplinary team member—the robot
Interdisciplinary team learning and working have been in vogue for several years now. Both are based on the fact that healthcare is a team activity. For example, we cannot function […]
Richard Smith: Tempting the middle classes away from the NHS by offering rapid access
I live in a well-to-do street in Clapham, making me and my neighbours a perfect target for those trying to promote immediate access to care and potentially, whether they mean […]
Abraar Karan: Should family members be present during end of life medical emergencies?
Is it helpful or harmful for a patient’s family to be present during these efforts, asks Abraar Karan […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Minimalism
Minimalism, the principle of using the minimum means necessary to achieve a desired result, was originally associated with various pictorial artists from the 1920s on, and was later introduced into […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Dragons and rings
My last two pieces have dealt with dragons and rings, two topics that merge in legend. The word “dragon” comes from an IndoEuropean root DERK, to look at. From this […]
Daniel Sokol: Assisted dying is compatible with the Hippocratic Oath
Geoff Whaley, a terminally ill man with motor neurone disease recently travelled from the UK to a Dignitas facility in Switzerland to end his own life. Shortly before his death, […]
Richard Smith: The most devastating critique of medicine since Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich in 1975
Seamus O’Mahony, a gastroenterologist from Cork, has written the most devastating critique of modern medicine since Ivan Illich in Medical Nemesis in 1975. O’Mahony cites Illich and argues that many […]
Giles Maskell: A really stupid mistake
As a radiologist I’m used to getting things wrong, but this one shook me up a bit […]
Nick Hopkinson: The prominence of e-cigarettes is a symptom of decades of failure to address smoking properly
A real danger is that debate around e-cigarettes drowns out the work needed to implement the full range of tobacco control measures […]