Since 2011, I’ve worked as a locum GP in Portugal’s national health service, where patients pay five euros for each appointment with a GP. Many people are exempt from paying, […]
Columnists
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Quacks, mountebanks, and charlatans
The common pejorative names for peddlers of ineffective medicines relate to advertising. A quack, wrote Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary, is “a murderer without a license”. The origin of […]
Richard Smith: Learning from ruins
Whenever I wander through ruins I imagine people centuries hence picking through the ruins of my world and wondering about the people who lived there. We can learn from ruins, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Medical anniversaries in 2016
A happy New Year to both my readers. And what a cornucopia of anniversaries we can celebrate this year. Take your pick. The topics are diverse (see also the pictures […]
William Cayley: Christmas thoughts
The Christmas holidays annually are a time for jolliness, cheer, and fun—from “Ugly Sweater” events to “White Elephant” gifts, and even The BMJ Christmas issue. It’s all in good fun, it […]
Desmond O’Neill on Star Wars: The Force Awakens—and matures
Exams and the pre Christmas rush notwithstanding, a triple-line party whip was in force within the family for the midnight first screening of Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Sitting in […]
Richard Smith: Why are we doing so badly with hypertension?
Forty years ago at medical school I learnt the “rule of halves” that states that among those with a chronic disease, like hypertension, half are diagnosed, half of those diagnosed […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Magazines
Magazines have a long and distinguished history. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a magazine as “a periodical publication containing articles by various writers; esp. one with stories, articles on general […]
Richard Smith: QMUL and King’s college should release data from the PACE trial
Several times when I was the editor of The BMJ the journal was declared the worst medical journal in the world by an ME association. Sometimes we shared the award with […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Three weeks on the front line
This blog has so far picked a metaphor, or a theme for metaphors, and searched for them. There are many metaphors that are less overt. For the last blog of […]