Trump must be contained, but the proper tools are political, not psychiatric […]
Allen Frances: We must not confuse Trump’s bad behavior with mental illness
Richard Smith: Advice to the NEJM on dealing with old influential articles with undisclosed COIs
At the end of last year JAMA Internal Medicine published a study that showed that the authors of two highly influential papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967 had undisclosed but important conflicts of interest. The two review papers demolished the idea that sugar might be important in coronary heart disease […]
Stephen Bradley: The grade that dare not speak its name
Attempts to ban the term “SHO” seem heavy handed and out of touch […]
Nancy Krieger: Are hate crimes a public health issue?
It is critical to identify structural racism is a key determinant of population health […]
Kieran Walsh: “Tests ain’t fair. Those that study have an unfair advantage.”
Assessment is a core component of medical education. Medical students must undergo continual examinations. Postgraduate trainees must pass their annual assessments. And fully qualified doctors must overcome the twin hurdles of appraisal and revalidation. Exams are like death and taxes—you can’t avoid them. Is there anything good to say about exams? Probably only that they […]
Simon Wessely: Stephen Hawking and his love letter to the NHS
Walking into the Royal Society of Medicine last Saturday (19 August) for my first official duty as the incoming President, two things suggested that this was not going to be the normal event I had been promised. Firstly, there were over 500 people present, and nearly all were younger than me. Secondly, there was a line […]
Rachel Clarke: The professor, the politician, and the advent of “Huntsplaining”
If this seems like a silly season Twitter spat, it isn’t. It’s deadly serious […]
Richard Smith: Journals, surgeons, and sexist language
Much to my amusement and countering the stereotype of surgeons, the Annals of Surgery has “following an uproar” retracted a paper that used only male pronouns to describe surgeons. It’s counter to the stereotype of surgeons because they still are overwhelming male and, in our imaginations if not reality, casually sexist. But there are an increasing number […]
Johann Malawana: Exception reporting—It’s not just a right but a duty
We must not stay silent while staff are being stretched and departments are falling apart […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Judgement or algorithm? Head or formula?
As I discussed last week, Paul Meehl showed, in 1954, in a book called Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, that various algorithms performed as well as clinical predictions, although he didn’t use the word “algorithm”. He had been stimulated to investigate this question by a paper in […]