Until very recently the Western Highlands of Kenya (once known as the White Highlands) were thick with forest, but many of those forests have been cut down. A friend in […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Adding treatment of hypertension to HIV programmes in rural Kenya
The biggest problem with treating hypertension in rural Kenya is lack of drugs. Health workers are plentiful, and there is an impressive health system—but drugs are scarce. I learnt this […]
Richard Smith: The Great War and NHS reform
The Great War changed the world forever and burnt itself into our language, memory, consciousness, and understanding of life. That’s the argument of Paul Fussell’s marvelous book “The Great War […]
Richard Smith: Healing from apartheid
South Africa is a country scarred by apartheid, and during my week in Cape Town I had a chance to get a sense in my own small and idiosyncratic way […]
Richard Smith: Managing hypertension in a South African township
South Africa suffers from a “quadruple burden” of disease—infectious disease, particularly AIDS and TB; trauma from road traffic injuries and violence; perinatal and maternal health problems; and non-communicable disease. I […]
Richard Smith: How can we encourage innovation in the NHS?
How can we encourage innovation in the NHS? Niti Pall, a GP and entrepreneur from Birmingham, asked herself this question and hit upon the idea of asking all the people […]
Richard Smith: Competition versus integration
“Competition in health care should be tactical not ideological.” That was the main message from a recent debate on “Competition versus integration in the NHS” organised by the Cambridge Health […]
Richard Smith: How to get people in the NHS to act on environmental sustainability?
“There’s a 50% chance that humans will be extinct by the end of the century because of climate change,” said Hugh Montgomery, director of the UCL Institute for Human Health, […]
Richard Smith: The breast cancer epidemic
The world is on the cusp of a major epidemic of breast cancer, said Peter Boyle, head of the international prevention research institute in Lyon, France, at a conference on […]
Richard Smith: Five things about the NHS that are not sustainable
“There are five things about the NHS that are not sustainable,” said Phil Morley, chief executive of Hull and East Yorkshire Trust, in the middle of a conference last week […]