It is well known that doctors’ professional roles change throughout their career. A junior doctor is expected to be mainly committed to clinical duties, while the head of department may be mainly dedicated to management duties, with a minor or even no clinical workload. GP trainees usually start off their vocational training program by spending most of their time […]
Category: Columnists
Tracey Koehlmoos: Can developing country health systems prepare for complex disasters (the “zombie apocalypse”)?
In light of the recent blog by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that focused on household emergency preparedness for the zombie apocalypse and other disasters like hurricanes, I began to ask myself whether health systems can prepare for similarly complex disasters (1). […]
Martin McShane: Appeasement
The changes the government is proposing in response to the NHS Future Forum might satisfy most of the people for some of the time but their implementation immediately struck me as posing a number of problems. Where the changes stick to principles, for instance around the NHS constitution, the role of the secretary of state, […]
Sandra Lako: Why do children come to the hospital so late?
One night, not too long ago, four children died in the emergency room at the Children’s Hospital. Two of them had been sick for more than two weeks before coming to the hospital for treatment, and sadly both children died within a few hours of admission. They had simply come too late. Day after day […]
Richard Smith: Prevention of diabetes – from impossible to widely available in 30 years
In the 1980s it was conventional wisdom that type 2 diabetes couldn’t be prevented, said Michael Engelgau of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when I chatted to him in Changzhi, China last week. The condition was treatable but not preventable. Dr Engelgau went onto to tell me about the thinking that led […]
Muir Gray: Ann McPherson – trilingual clinician
The obituary by Charles Warlow of Ann McPherson showed that she was not only a bilingual but a trilingual clinician, and we have to ensure that her example will stimulate others to follow her leadership and use their experience as patients or carers to change health services for the better. […]
Martin McShane: Director’s cut
I picked up a book recently co-authored by Colin Price, the essence of which can be found in this slide deck. One of the key points made is that if you are trying to transform the way you do things it is really important to have a clear narrative, a story which people can connect […]
David Kerr: Geoenvironmental medicine and technology
The world did not end last month after all. Harold Camping, the founder of the Family Radio Network purchased space on 1,200 billboards across the United States proclaiming doomsday for May 21st. This is the third time he has been caught offside in his predictions for the end of the world. However, around that time an […]
Desmond O’Neill: A rare scientific hiccough at the science gallery
Despite a surprisingly large scientific heritage [1] , the Republic of Ireland has no science museum. Nature abhorring a vacuum, an innovative avenue for celebrating science was created by the opening of the Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin in 2008. This flexible if modest space has been a runaway success under its gifted director, Michael […]
Richard Smith: Surgical editor loses job through overselling semen
I’ve a collection of stories editors of medical publications coming unstuck, often in bizarre ways, but the story of Lazar Greenfield departing Surgery News and causing a whole issue to disappear will be the Mona Lisa of my collection. Surgery News is published by Elsevier and is the official newspaper of the American College of […]