The words automaton, android, replicant, and robot refer to pretty much the same thing. The word automaton (Greek αὐτόματον, a marionette), describing a device that moves by virtue of a concealed mechanism, entered English at the start of the 17th century and was applied to instruments such as clocks, clockwork toys, and mechanisms designed to […]
Which is better: “Aspirin can cause Reye’s syndrome” or “Aspirin may cause Reye’s syndrome”? The answer lies in a consideration of modal verbs, also called modal auxiliaries. Modal verbs are used to express modality, in other words, they modify the meaning of a verb, indicating how to interpret it. The main (or central) modal verbs […]
Hypertension is the world’s leading cause of premature death, ahead even of tobacco and obesity, and most of those deaths occur in poor countries. Yet the health system in most of those countries is unable to help people with hypertension. Tazeen Jafar, a nephrologist and professor of health services and systems research at Duke-NUS Medical […]
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). It came as a surprise to many people who had not heard of the international alliance of over 450 civil society organisations in 101 countries, with its tiny secretariat in Geneva. The award was a tribute to the […]
In various blogs that I have been writing in the last few months about translational research, algorithms, knowledge and its diffusion and dissemination, skills, performance, and competence, implementation has been ever present in the background and is an important part of my operational model of translational research. The IndoEuropean root PELƎ meant to fill, with […]
Matt Morgan discusses how patient notes could be improved […]
In the early days of e-learning there was great enthusiasm, but little evidence of effectiveness. The enthusiasts said that they couldn’t wait for evidence and so went ahead anyway. When evidence did start to emerge, it seemed to suggest that e-learning offered similar outcomes as traditional methods of medical education—which was a good and solid […]
When you develop a mortal illness, as you will do if you’re not one of the fifth of the population who dies suddenly, you are likely to find that many friends desert you. The same will happen if somebody in your family develops such an illness. And if you’re a doctor then the people most […]
If etymology were anything to go by, checklists would rule our lives, although we must beware not to let etymology rule our views of language, informative though it can be. The IndoEuropean root KSEI meant to gain control or power over, to rule. In Sanskrit a kshatriya was a member of the military caste (rulers, […]
The award-winning cinema documentary Unrest explores the stories of people living with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Ahead of its UK theatrical release on 20 October, Julian Sheather, Specialist Adviser, Ethics and Human Rights at the BMA, says the film raises important issues for the medical community. What do we mean by illness? What is a disease? […]