Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Every so often I hear stories of people prominent in medical research who are suspected of research misconduct—or research fraud, as it was once more bluntly called. Could the stories possibly be true? Some prominent people have been found guilty of misconduct, and we know that research misconduct is not rare. A systematic review found […]
After a class I taught recently one of the students came up to me and said, “My mother was fond of you. Her name was Clare Vaughan.” I remembered. I met Clare only once, shortly before she died in July 1996 in her early 40s. My memory of the meeting is hazy: I remember beauty, […]
Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society, believes that robots might replace human beings within 50-60 years. Looking at writings from him on the web, I’m not sure that’s exactly what he believes, but an audience at the London School of Economics was told he did by his friend Lord […]
In his book “Adolf Hitler: my part in his downfall,” Spike Milligan modestly suggested that his part had been small. My contribution to the history of surgery is even smaller and much more ignominious, but I’m prompted to tell the tale by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh deciding to make me a fellow. […]
Perhaps 20, possibly 25 or even 30, years ago I had breakfast (or was it lunch?) with Geoffrey Marsh, a GP from Teesside, and he told me that all GPs should have 3000 patients. I think he was right, but since that time average list sizes have steadily shrunk until they are now under 1600. […]
About a billion people end the day hungry, another billion are obese, and food prices are steadily rising. Clearly something is very wrong with the world’s food system, and the Economist last week held a conference on Feeding the World. As several people pointed out, it might better have been called Nourishing the World as […]
A first year medical student of today may well still be practising in 2070. We can’t know how medicine will look then, but we can see some clear trends. The relationship between doctors and patients will surely be much more equal; indeed, health will be the business primarily of patients, with doctors as advisers, guides, […]
Digitisation of the NHS will both save and improve it believe Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for health, and Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information at NHS England. Both were youthful, bubbly, and even charming as they did a double act last week at the Cambridge Health Network, although Kelsey had to perform […]
Twenty years ago this week the statistician Doug Altman published an editorial in the BMJ arguing that much medical research was of poor quality and misleading. In his editorial entitled, “The Scandal of Poor Medical Research,” Altman wrote that much research was “seriously flawed through the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples, incorrect […]
It’s hard not to be fascinated by Francois Hollande’s alleged (why do we keep bothering with this word?) affair with an actress with stories of two Parisian love nests, bags of croissants being delivered by security men for breakfast, and the president travelling by scooter for their assignations. But the bit of the story that […]