Everybody reading The Uninhabitable Earth could literally (the correct use of a usually misused word) save the planet, says Richard Smith The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells is the only […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Using behavioural economics to improve healthcare and prevent doctor burnout
Since Daniel Kahneman’s magnificent book, Thinking Fast and Slow, made us think differently about ourselves—as Darwin and Freud had done before—we have become familiar with the ideas of flawed thinking, […]
Richard Smith: Making your complaint count
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 […]
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 […]
Richard Smith: Who is most likely to have side effects to flu vaccination?
A simple question that seems to be unanswered but should be answered, says Richard Smith […]
Richard Smith: Donald Irvine—a medical leader who both failed and succeeded
On a train north I read Donald Irvine’s obituary in The BMJ, and memories flood into my mind. These memories are one of the gifts of age, preferable to T […]
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 […]
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 […]
Richard Smith: The public health of death, dying, and grief has been neglected, but now is the time
The dying spend less than 5% of their time with doctors and nurses, and 95% doing something else, perhaps alone, with family and friends, walking the dog, making love, reading […]
Richard Smith: Can fiction save us from climate catastrophe?
After reading John Lanchester’s chilling dystopian novel The Wall about how the world will be after climate catastrophe I had the unsettling sense for several days that the world he […]