Death and dying are inevitable parts of life. They are not primarily medical events, yet the status quo is to medicalise the dying process and hand over responsibility for the […]
Latest articles
Tessa Richards: “Therapeutic relationships”—prized but hard to deliver
I hate to think of what I’ve cost the NHS since I was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. This year alone I’d need to factor in 12 outpatient appointments, seven […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Nutraceuticals and functional foods
Deborah Cohen recently reported in The BMJ that George Freeman, the UK sciences minister, whose responsibilities include the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the National Institute for […]
Richard Smith: Doctors phishing for phools
In their influential book Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception two Nobel prize winners, George A Akerlof and Robert J Shiller, describe how businesses profit from exploiting […]
Clifford Mann: My biggest career failure
I had spent five years as a senior house officer in the late 1980s and early 1990s trying to decide on a specialty, sitting exams, and changing my mind several […]
Pietro Dionisio: The shortage of medicines in Venezuela is a humanitarian crisis
Venezuela is a powder keg. A major objective of the Chávez government after the Bolivarian revolution was to improve healthcare for the Venezuelan people, and they built thousands of new […]
John Davies: Getting ready for Rio
As the Olympic Games approach, I’m beginning to make preparations. I’m going there! I got the bug at London 2012. They asked the public to volunteer because no games can happen […]
Sarah Mitchell: It’s time to change end of life conversations for better care
What can we do to improve care for people who are dying? Someone dies every minute in the UK. In healthcare we know we need to improve what we are […]
Collette Isabel Stadler: How poor provision of mental health services adds to the risk burden for children in care
If you are a 65 year old male smoker with hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, and a family history of cardiovascular disease, the QRISK calculator informs a physician that your chances of having […]
Kate Adlington: Is there such a thing as the “right diagnosis”? Review from the Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference 2016
As doctors, we probably already consider ourselves honorary members of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). It’s essentially part of our job description. But there is an option to […]