No, I am not about to declare myself a closet trekkie. I have in mind the decision by Judge Marco Billi to jail six Italian seismologists for giving ‘false assurances’ before an earthquake hit L’Aquila in 2009, a decision, as the BBC just couldn’t help saying, that sent “shockwaves” through the scientific community. What made […]
What can Bletchley Park teach us about organisations and organisational life? I have just read an excellent book by Christopher Grey, Decoding Organization (great title), who brings his academic experience in organisational studies, together with a deep delve into archives, to the iconic site of Bletchley Park. Much has been written on this, but it […]
Having the opening day of a major health conference on a Sunday seems slightly unusual to a British or Irish conference goer but thousands gathered in the gorgeous autumn sunshine of California to meet and debate on public health at a crucial time of health and healthcare in the US. The Annual Meeting of the […]
Introducing the topic of smoking in pregnancy as “an orphan subject in this area” seemed the right choice of words to the handful of people who turned up for the session out of the thousands participating in the congress of the International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO) in Rome earlier this month. WHO is […]
Who will be the leaders working on the front lines in the battle against the rising tide of non communicable diseases in developing countries? Who will prepare them to take on this task? More practically, how will we pay for this and how will there be enough strength in numbers to make a difference? If […]
Migration has always been a source of population growth in Europe, and in recent decades it has become the principal driver of urban growth throughout much of the EU, if not Europe in general. Given the continuing decline in fertility and the rapidly ageing nature of Europe’s domestic situation, migration can be expected to continue growing as a way […]
The clinical data collected by hospitals in England is almost completely useless. So says Tim Kelsey, the recently appointed National Director for Patients and Information. It’s so bad, he believes, that National Clinical Directors charged with commissioning services simply cannot do their job because there is no useful data to base their work on. […]
JAMA 24-31 Oct 2012 Vol 308 1660 Medicine is full of surprises, but sometimes things are just the way you thought they were. Back in 1973, I was taught that the causes of peripheral arterial disease in men were smoking, diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. Then in 1986, the Health Professionals Follow-up Study recruited 44 […]
Medicine was the theme of this summer’s issue of Granta, the magazine of new writing. A gift for anyone with an interest in narrative medicine. “What does that even mean, ‘Narrative Medicine’? I’m never totally sure what that means, but I think that’s part of the point, that it means different things to different people…” […]
It is not often that I find myself quoting Moshe Dyan, but his aperçu that you don’t make peace with your friends has gained wide currency. In medical terms this might best be translated that our debates and advocacy are best shaped in dialogue where there is true opposition and dissent. I was reminded of […]