Apparently, we are moving to our new apartment on Thursday. Only we haven’t completed the sale as planned, on Monday. This is our fault, sort of. The bank didn’t send documents in time before we went on holiday in Tasmania. So we signed them late. […]
Richard Smith: What do you want your care home to be like?
At a conference I attended recently we were all asked to think about what kind of care home we would like. This was a truly shocking question. It was a conference on death and dying, and I’d thought a lot about a good death. For me the thought of being in a care home was […]
David Payne: Videos and blogs
As I write this my boss is discussing video on bmj.com with other senior colleagues, mainly to see if we should commit to providing more embedded video clips alongside news, comment, feature, and research articles. You might think this is a no-brainer. Other sites have been doing this successfully for years. And although it needn’t […]
Siddhartha Yadav: Doctors’ involvement in torture
My attention was drawn to a story in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper about alleged abuse of eleven Iraqis by British soldiers, coming less than a month after the BMJ covered a press conference organised by Physicians for Human Rights, which I attended. […]
Anna Donald: Funerals and hairstyles
Oh dear. I’ve just been to another funeral. The third one this year. Death swirls its big mysterious cloaks around us (what colour? black? rainbow? purple?), sweeping change to all of our lives. At this rate I’m going to outlive everyone. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Primary care and the President
Everyone is an expert in primary care. Newsagents, bar staff, waiters, hairdressers and little old ladies laden with shopping all have their own view. In the anonymity of a city you can tune in, unrecognised, to everyday conversations. Public opinion seems to be changing with GPs seen as overpaid, underworked, and not performing. The news […]
Julian Sheather on making mistakes
When I was a child I had three basic approaches to making a mistake. Firstly I would run away as far as possible and pretend it hadn’t happened. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Music of eternal youth
The only oestrogen in the room came from a packet. And, from my seat, no man had a full head of hair. It could have been a convention of replaced hips, knees and dodgy coronary arteries. Such was the age profile at the Sunday afternoon concert at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival that few […]
Richard Smith: The end of disease and the beginning of health
I think I’m healthy, but am I right? I’m tubby. My hair is white and thin and gone altogether from some parts of my head. I’m short sighted and astigmatic. My Achilles tendon aches at times, and when I get out of bed in the morning I hobble. I haven’t had my blood pressure measured […]
Anne Caley: Cycling and recycling
Having been back in Leicester for a couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of being re-united with an old and faithful friend – my bike. […]