One of the challenges of teaching medical ethics is the need to continually connect with the wellsprings of philosophy and (whisper it) theology. Without these elements there is danger of a retreat to the pragmatic and utilitarian, or worse still to legalism (an undue dependence on the law rather than ethics), particularly in courses where […]
Category: Columnists
Richard Smith: US health reform – good or bad?
Is US health reform a “monumental system transformation or a fatally flawed compromise?” This was the question addressed last night by Alan Gerber, doctor, economist, health policy expert, government adviser, and holder of five chairs at Stanford University (enough, pointed out by the chair of the meeting, for a one person dinner party) in the […]
Liz Wager warms to qualitative research
I’m just back from running a course in Kenya and, as usual, it was an eye-opening experience – but perhaps not in the way you might expect. I’ll admit that, until now, I have been a bit sceptical about qualitative research. […]
Julian Sheather: Neither playing God nor worshipping Her
And so scientists have succeeded in creating life in a test-tube. Hey ho. Another day, another biotech Rubicon behind us. But before we finally succumb to miracle fatigue it might be worth holding that fact in our hands for a while and wondering what it might mean. […]
Julian Sheather: Why am I frightened of doctors?
Reader I am not a shrinking violet, not a wuss or a whimp. When friends seek to describe me, pusillanimous is not the first adjective they choose. For all its many faults I have a mind and I tend to speak it. So why oh why am I still frightened of doctors? […]
Siddhartha Yadav on young people at Women Deliver 2010
Last week, more than 3,000 global leaders working in the field of maternal and reproductive health gathered in Washington, D.C for the Women Deliver 2010 conference. With the theme of delivering solutions for girls and women, the conference focused on sharing solutions that can help us achieve the millennium development goals on maternal and reproductive […]
Julian Sheather: Does medicine do any good?
Am I alone in feeling that faint thrill in the air, the thrill that comes in the interregnum between the expectation of pain and its arrival? There’ s probably a word for it, something Germanic and angular, compounded from the lexica of psychopathology. […]
Richard Smith: Are doctors part of the solution or part of the problem?
The Royal College of Physicians and various other medical bodies want doctors to be serious about tackling the social determinants of health, and have held a conference on the topic. There were some brilliant speeches (plus some duds of course), but all day I found myself asking whether doctors were part of the solution or […]
Richard Smith: University of California takes on Nature Publishing Group
The University of California has told the Nature Publishing Group that it will suspend its subscriptions to the group’s 67 journals if it does not relent over its decision to raise its charges to the university by 300%. The university will also urge its staff not to submit to and review for the journals and to […]
Richard Smith: Do I belong to a “failed generation?”
Baby boomers—those of us born between the end of the war and the early 60s—are a failed generation,” said Alex Jadad, chief innovator and founder, Centre for Global eHeath Innovation (and much else), at a conference on last week. I’m a baby boomer. Am I the member of a failed generation? Sadly I think that […]