I have always been troubled by the “disconnect” between clinical practice and real life. Clinical evidence recommends a standard intervention, according to research, but it often flounders in the messy heterogeneity of the real world. This week I found myself worried about replicating this “disconnect” in the online world, especially with the addition of gamification, […]
Category: Columnists
Julian Sheather: On living to be a hundred
A gamesome piece by Garrison Keillor in this month’s Prospect on, dare I say it, the prospect of living to be 100 and what it might mean to him. It comes on the back of data from the Office for National Statistics suggesting that a third of babies born last year will live to be […]
Richard Smith: Why interpreters and translators matter so much
When Willie Ramirez was admitted to hospital in Florida his Spanish speaking family said he was intoxicado. There is no exact equivalent of intoxicado in English. It doesn’t mean intoxicated, but that’s how it was translated by the bilingual person who interpreted for the medical staff. Willie was diagnosed as having taken a deliberate overdose. […]
Tiago Villanueva: The difference between a job and a fulfilling career
A few days ago I was having dinner with a group of close friends who are all doctors, and working in the Portuguese public healthcare sector. One of the topics of conversation was the need everyone felt to carry out additional work in the private sector just to earn a decent income at the end […]
Desmond O’Neill: Ageing with Keith Jarrett
The last time I heard Keith Jarrett was just over thirty years ago, a distraction from the tensions of final med with some fellow medical students. Even the choir balcony tickets were eye wateringly expensive, the compact and elegant National Concert Hall in Dublin barely half full on a damp November night, and the experience […]
Richard Smith: Are Glaswegians the Aboriginals of Europe?
Harry Burns, the chief medical officer of Scotland and one of medicine’s philosophers, has spent a lot of time trying to understand why Scotland has such poor health and what might be done. He shared his thinking at a meeting in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary last week. Scotland has not always had poor health. For most […]
Pritpal S Tamber: The fallacy of user interfaces and big data
I’m lucky enough to spend my workdays around the kinetic kids in Google Campus, London. From what I can tell, they sit about hacking code to see what they might make possible. Occasionally they have flat whites, crack jokes, and look around them, but, in general, hacking is what they do. For reasons that are […]
Richard Smith: Will entrepreneurs save the NHS?
All the political parties and those at the top of the NHS see an important role for entrepreneurs in the latest version of the health service. Those labouring within the service are less convinced, and entrepreneurs have great difficulty finding any customers. The NHS Commissioning Board (or CB, as we are learning to call it) […]
Desmond O’Neill: Lessons of the Francis Report are not just confined to the NHS
One of the most striking theatre productions I have ever witnessed was a riotous Polish play called Birthrate, the highlight of the 1981 Dublin Theatre Festival. Starting with a stage set resembling a train compartment, all was sweetness and light as the first few passengers entered, ceding place politely to a mother and baby. However, […]
Marge Berer: Depo Provera
The recent news that Ethiopian Jewish women had been given the injectable contraceptive Depo Provera without their knowledge or consent awakened a strong feeling of déjà vu for me. When I came into the field of reproductive health, 35 years ago, Depo Provera had just come onto the market. There were far fewer contraceptive methods available […]