About twice a week somebody asks me: “What exactly do you do these days?” Many doctors knew me as the editor of the BMJ, and they have a vague memory […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Trying to redefine health
Last week about 30 of us spent 36 hours in The Hague discussing whether we could produce a new definition of health—and eventually deciding that we couldn’t. But we had […]
Richard Smith on scaling up to defeat childhood obesity
Some three million children in Britain are obese, and treating childhood obesity is far from easy. To have any chance of responding adequately to the epidemic of obesity we need […]
Richard Smith: Dead philosophers can make you laugh
Perhaps I should have realised from the title, but when I began to read The Book of Dead Philosophers I didn’t expect it to be funny. In fact Simon Critchley’s stories […]
Richard Smith: can the internet transform public services?
Slowly but surely the internet is transforming industries—finance, travel, music, entertainment—but so far it has had little impact on public services. But can it transform public services and if so […]
Richard Smith is expelled from the Royal College of Physicians
I’ve just been thrown out of the Royal College of Physicians, which has moderately excited me—probably just as much as when I became a fellow. My sin is not paying […]
Richard Smith on health research in rural China
The differences between rural and urban China are stark. Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities are filled with new buildings, best illustrated by those built for the Olympics, whereas rural […]
Richard Smith on learning leadership from Henry V
Last week I was privileged to hear a brilliant talk—by Nicholas Janni—on what Henry V or rather Shakespeare has to teach us about leadership. Prince Harry was, as most people […]
Richard Smith on assessing health technology assessment
The budget of Britain’s Health Technology Assessment programme has grown from £13m in 2006 to £88m in 2010, and it has conducted a swathe of trials on new technologies, published dozens […]
Richard Smith: Rethinking priorities in global health
Last week’s conference to launch Edinburgh University’s Global Health Academy left me thinking that priorities in global health may be very wrong. David Molyneaux from Liverpool said that an alien […]