There are many benefits to patients from negative trial results […]
Columnists
Nick Hopkinson: Your life in my hands—review
Andrew Lansley had his calamitous Health and Social Care Act 2012; Kenneth Clarke introduced the wasteful and destructive NHS internal market before going off to work for British American Tobacco; […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Being one, two, or many
As I noted last week, animals are monophyodonts, diphyodonts, or polyphyodonts. Rodents and some cetaceans, for example, are monophyodonts—their teeth grow continuously and are never replaced. Humans, and most other […]
Martin McKee: Too big to fail? The Carillion affair exposes wider failings of governance
Carillion, an outsourcing company that had become a major provider of support services in the NHS and other sectors of the economy has joined a select group of once great […]
Richard Smith: The corruption of medical language
A young doctor friend sends me a link to a piece he has written in the Guardian newspaper. I praise the simplicity and clarity of the language and suggest that […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Nonexistent words, nonexistent meanings
As I noted last week, “spuria”, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as “spurious works, words, etc.”, was first recorded in 1918. The word appeared in Rupert Brooke: a […]
Giles Maskell: The new chest x ray
What would be required if we were seriously to contemplate the replacement of the chest x ray with CT scanning in the acute setting? […]
Richard Smith: A Big Brother future for science publishing?
There have been big changes in science publishing in the 25 years since the appearance of the internet, but at the same time science publishing is still dominated by journals, […]
Martin McKee: What would a “no deal” Brexit mean—and what does it tell us about those who advocate for it?
It is difficult to envisage a worse outcome for the United Kingdom than “no deal” Brexit—it would have serious implications for health […]
Matt Morgan: “Running a hospital is a bit like running a . . .”
Medicine needs to make, adapt, and find its own strategies, instead of borrowing from other industries […]