I recently attended a seminar concerned with human rights violations of women forced or coerced into sterilisation, a joint undertaking by the Open Society Institute and the International Federation of […]
Julian Sheather
Julian Sheather is specialist adviser (ethics and human rights), policy directorate, BMA.
Julian Sheather: What’s wrong with addiction?
Middle-aged; mid-life; mid-career. Party to the blessings – and the curses – of a young family. A sense that some things have been achieved, some are still to be achieved, […]
Julian Sheather: On the terrible instability of opinion
We live in momentous times. Foundations are being shaken; long-held assumptions overthrown. The relationship between citizen and state is being redrawn. Consider only the health service. So much that seemed […]
Julian Sheather: Is happiness a mental disorder?
Although undoubtedly a fine publication, I think it is probably fair to say that it is not every day that the Journal of Medical Ethics puts in an appearance in […]
Julian Sheather: When patients become the enemy
I was out with a friend recently, a GP. He works in an inner-city practice. By all accounts he is a good GP. As a mate I know him to […]
Julian Sheather: Science, bad science and self abuse
I recently happened upon a fascinating article by Ben Goldacre – he of Bad science fame – on the ticklish question of the provision of pornography at IVF clinics to […]
Julian Sheather: I want to be bipolar
Slouching around the internet recently I happened upon an article with a title that intrigued me – and one that I have shamelessly stolen for this blog. Where once the […]
Julian Sheather: Doctors’ religious beliefs and end of life care
Early on in my ‘career’ in ethics – I put the word in scare quotes not only because the idea that my rather shapeless crashing about should be dignified with […]
Julian Sheather: Medicine and nature
Synchronicity. The meaningful coincidence of causally unrelated events. It was the Swiss psychologist and all round weaver of the wind Carl Jung who coined the word. […]
Julian Sheather: Are doctors better people?
It’s an odd question I know, but bear with me. It was prompted by a book I picked up again recently, “Open Skies,” a collection of Somerset landscapes by the […]