I’ve been puzzling for years over how to define health without making much progress, but I thought I might take a step forward by listening to a discussion on the radio about whether philosophy can help you live the good life. […]
About twice a week somebody asks me: “What exactly do you do these days?” Many doctors knew me as the editor of the BMJ, and they have a vague memory that I left to do something disreputable. My brother advises me to answer: “I’m back laying pavements for the council.” That stops further inquiries, he […]
I have just been to a breakfast conversation on genetics and health care. I am not at my best early on, but as the LSE had assembled an impressive list of experts, I made the cold early morning trip to Simpsons on the Strand. The conversation had to do with the likely impact of the […]
I want to speak of a certain dread – call it a patient’s dread. I speak from experience. In my early twenties I went under the knife a handful of times. A little problem with a psoas abscess. All over now, thankfully, excepting the memories, but it is out of those memories that I want […]
Last week about 30 of us spent 36 hours in The Hague discussing whether we could produce a new definition of health—and eventually deciding that we couldn’t. But we had an interesting time, and I concluded that I would think of health not as a state or a destination but rather as a journey. The […]
The team and I have a new project. We are embarking on a multi-country study that is looking at the Impact of Measles Eradication Activities on Immunization Services and Health Systems. To that end we hosted a meeting with the key stakeholders in Bangladesh on immunization activities (EPI, Expanded Programme on Immunization) to include multiple […]
Some three million children in Britain are obese, and treating childhood obesity is far from easy. To have any chance of responding adequately to the epidemic of obesity we need to find, firstly, a treatment that works and, secondly, a way to scale it up so that it can be delivered efficiently. Both problems are hard, […]
Perhaps I should have realised from the title, but when I began to read The Book of Dead Philosophers I didn’t expect it to be funny. In fact Simon Critchley’s stories of how “190 or so” philosophers died and some of what they said about death is at times hilarious—as well as rich with meaning. Let’s […]
Slowly but surely the internet is transforming industries—finance, travel, music, entertainment—but so far it has had little impact on public services. But can it transform public services and if so how and when? These were the questions that ran through a day of “cocreation” organized by Patient Opinion, an organisation founded by GP Paul Hodgkin […]
They were waiting for me when I returned to Dhaka in late July. My office is not easily found, so the small group of older gentlemen must have been determined in their efforts. Without an appointment but bearing chocolate, the request was clear: surely I had access to the H1N1 vaccine and they wanted it […]