My 90-year-old mother is demented in the most benign way: she says sweet words to all the people she meets and lives in a world of trees, sunlight, and cups […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: The case for workshops on publication and research ethics (and an invitation)
“Imagine that you write a scientific paper on the influence of various factors on drug compliance. You are not writing about a specific drug, but a student who is working […]
Should the first rule of medicine be not “Do no harm” but rather “Be kind”?
Wordsworth wrote in Tintern Abbey that the “best portion of a good man’s life” are “His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” I understood this thought better […]
Richard Smith: Whom to trust on old age—Matt Hancock or Cicero?
The Manifesto of the Conservative Party promised us all five more years of healthy life by 2035. At the launch of the strategy for healthier longer lives from the All […]
Richard Smith: Must capitalism end to avoid climate collapse?
Before last night’s passionate and well argued debate at the Royal Geographical Society on the motion “To stop climate collapse, we must end capitalism,” 38% of the well-heeled audience of […]
Richard Smith: Junior doctors in Russia 1917; Edinburgh 1977; and now—all the same?
In A Country Doctor’s Notebook Mikhail Bulgakov describes his experiences of being a newly graduated doctor sent alone in 1917 to run a hospital in rural Russia some 24 hours […]
Richard Smith: Learning from Canada about assisted dying
Discussions on assisted dying are usually heated and about whether it should be legalised. But I recently found myself in the privileged position of discussing with a well informed group […]
Richard Smith: Time to scrap offices (and reduce face-to-face consultations) to reduce carbon consumption
I’m pleased to see from Twitter that most people agree with my recent assertion that most meetings could be held virtually rather than face-to-face, saving tonnes of carbon (and time). […]
Richard Smith: Most meetings can happen electronically, saving tonnes of carbon
I’d better start with a confession. I must have flown the Atlantic 300 times. I’ve been multiple times to New Zealand and Australia and have flown often to Japan, China, […]
Richard Smith: The struggle to create a new craft of dying—what is medicine’s role?
“Lyn Lofland’s The Craft of Dying (1978) is one of the most important books on post WWII death and dying practices that almost no one has read,” writes John Troyer, […]