Do art and misery share a bed? Although we might expect art to entertain and even, at a push, to improve its audience, artists themselves are surely supposed to suffer. […]
Guest writers
Richard Smith: Why the NHS can’t be left to government
Two weeks ago I sang the “Winkle Song” in the excellent acoustic of the Oxford Union. I’m a terrible singer, and it must have been excruciating for the audience. But […]
Richard Smith’s Miltonic torment – calling the NHS
I ring the Kent and Sussex Hospital to try and find out when my mother can expect to have her hip replaced. I’m worried that the hospital may have sent […]
Richard Smith: Get with Web 2.0 or become yesterday’s person
Web 2.0—the social web—has the potential to improve global health greatly and to solve complex problems in health science—as it has already done in particle physics. I heard this message […]
Julian Sheather: Is depression a problem of meaning or of medicine?
In a recent article in the BMJ Paul Biegler returns to a familiar theme in some of the more reflective literature on depression. Should an episode of depression be seen […]
Joe Collier: Word watching – checking for tricks
I love words. I love their subtlety, their precision, their power, their influence. For me, they represent the embodiment of our thoughts and so our intellects. The abuse of words […]
Julian Sheather on the Wellcome exhibition “Life Before Death”
Jannik Boehmfeld is dead. He is six years old, a year younger than my eldest son. He is lying on his back. His mouth is open but his eyes are […]
Joe Collier: An end in sight for the secretive drug price fixing pact between government and industry
By September this year it is almost certain that a new system will be in place for determining how much the NHS will pay for its brand name medicines. For […]
Julian Sheather: Does art make people better doctors?
Recently a colleague of mine, a GP, told me she was taking a three-month sabbatical. She was going to sit on an island in the Mediterranean and do very little […]
Liselotte Højggard: A room with a view..a journal with a conscience
Congratulations with the first BMJ on recycled paper. Being an old editor myself it is nice to see that the usual high quality of illustrations is unchanged in spite of […]