I wrote this piece some six weeks ago after giving evidence in a libel case reported by The BMJ and published on 30 July 2015 . I’ve had to wait […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Making patient data available—the risks are easy to understand, the benefits opaque
“We seem to spend all our time talking about the downside of making patient data available and little about the upside,” said a frustrated researcher at last week’s Sowerby eHealth […]
Richard Smith: Do dreams have meaning? The great divide
The other night in a dream I saw my father, who died 11 years ago. He was very clear, recently shaved, with his hair combed and in full colour. He […]
Richard Smith: Is informed consent impossible at the end of life?
Informed consent is impossible at the end of life, said a British palliative care physician last week at a conference on Heybeliada, one of the Prince’s Islands in the Sea […]
Richard Smith: “Diagnose, treat, and cure” is largely dead
I don’t suppose that the people who taught me at medical school thought that they were promoting particular mental models. They were trying (and sadly failing) to make me the […]
Richard Smith: Time for GPs to be leaders not victims
General practitioners are overworked, underappreciated, and perhaps underpaid. Politicians are unsympathetic to their plight and expecting more of them. Hospital doctors dump work on them. Nurses are after their jobs. […]
Richard Smith: Time for a drive to register all global births and deaths
If your birth is not registered then you don’t exist, and yet a third of global births are not registered. If your death is not registered then your wife (or […]
Richard Smith: Keeping the NHS alive
The NHS has to change radically if it is to survive. All those who study the NHS closely know that, but I’m not sure that all those who work in […]
Richard Smith: Australians fire an editor of the MJA for the fourth time
The Australian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo), a creature of the Australian Medical Association, has just fired another editor of the Medical Journal Australia; that’s at least four (and probably more) […]
Richard Smith: “Flat of the curve” healthcare
Alain Enthoven, an economist and inventor of the internal market, described “flat of the curve” healthcare where increased expenditure on healthcare produces no further benefit. Are we at that point […]