In what has been called the age of accountability, editors have continued to be as unaccountable as kings. But stories of editorial misconduct are growing, and another story, nothing less than a ripping yarn, has recently appeared in the Harvard Health Policy Review (2008; 9: 46-55.) The story is told by Donald Light and Rebecca […]
Every so often a story comes along that unexpectedly sheds light on a far more widely shared unease. Top-up payments is one of those stories. For many years we have lived, more or less happily, with a simultaneous headline commitment to an NHS that is free to all on the basis of need, an implicit […]
Yesterday, I received some great feedback about a workshop I ran. Sorry if this sounds horribly self-congratulatory, but I’d like to share it with you. At the start of the workshop, one participant politely explained that she couldn’t stay for the whole session as she had a plane to catch. This struck me as a […]
I have just read a BMJ news story about doctors being beaten up in Nepal for the death of a patient. While this may seem to be quite shocking for the western society, it is an everyday reality for us, medicos, living and practising in Nepal. Over the past five years such incidents have been […]
It is a long time since I studied art history, but if I remember rightly the invention of photography is said to have contributed to the exhaustion of the realist impulse in the visual arts. It sounds plausible: the documentary impulse, the desire faithfully to record what is actually there, which has always been close […]
Are we making good progress with improving health care? If not, why not and how could we do better? I tried to answer these questions as I spoke to a thousand enthusiasts for health care quality in Nijmegen at the launch of IQ Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare. There were probably 50 people in […]
News of the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to smash its first atoms on 10 September, makes me wonder not about subatomic particles but about adjectives. When I teach researchers how to report their work, I generally advise them to be wary of qualifying adjectives as they seem out of place in scientific papers. […]
It runs like an uneasy theme in the ethics of health care provision. How do we respond to the genuine health needs of individuals who do not have legal rights of residency and are unable to pay privately for their own health care? What obligations, if any, do we have to sick people who are […]
I’m just back from a week’s holiday in Romania. If your idea of a relaxing break is designer shopping, things that run on time and predictability, then I recommend you stick to Switzerland but for unspoilt mountain scenery, delicious milk still warm from the cow* and an even warmer welcome from spontaneously hospitable and generous […]
On July 31, two of Canada’s biggest tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd and Rothmans Benson and Hedges Inc, agreed to pay $300 million in fines and an additional $815 million in civil damages over the next 15 years for their admission that both companies aided persons to sell and be in possession of tobacco […]