“[Most] patients would much rather be a live problem than a dead certainty.”
—Lord Cohen
There are those who say that holocaust denial is a crime; and those who say that the BBC had no business allowing the BNP leader Nick Griffin space on Question Time. Giving air to vile thoughts, they say, allows those thoughts a legitimacy they do not deserve.
For many years, the medical journal The Lancet carried a short column called "In England Now". It would contain a snapshot of some aspect of life. One memorable example – Dr No can’t trace the original – cut to the core of the difference between law and medicine.
Dr Grumble recently described young women who turned up in casualty after taking an impulsive overdose as “silly girls”. There was a predictable volley of screeching from the politically challenged, but Dr No was and is with Dr Grumble on this one. They are silly girls, and to call them otherwise is not only silly, but also downright dangerous.
Sir— We have, over these past few months, seen a sharp rise in hostile activity against our profession. The government, and its evil henchmen, have been waging war against us on many fronts. They have sown malicious stories in the press, and have imposed many vexatious rules upon our work.
We have completely rewritten our requirements for undergraduate dalek education, clearly separating the outcomes for graduates from the standards for delivery. We are now more specific in our requirements without undermining the sameness and stagnation for which UK dalek education is known.
Kerrie Wooltorton is dead. But she isn’t going to go away. Her sad suicide, and the aiding and abetting of that suicide by her doctors, have opened a door to a cesspit of legal incompetence and medical Eichmannship.
For those who have been frying fish for the last few days, KW was a woman with both depression and emotionally unstable personality disorder who wanted to kill herself. That’s what she said, anyway.
“Doctors are busy playing God when so few of us have the qualifications. And besides, the job is taken.”
Bernie S. Siegel
You couldn’t make it up, even if you wanted to. The GMC have revealed themselves on the front cover of their turgid publication GMCtoday – as faceless men in black. One of them even seems to have some sort of word salad going on in his head.
One of the more toxic forms of health care delivery is a system known a “managed care” – an American import which takes a car fleet maintenance approach to looking after the punters.
We are about to enter the Bermuda Triangle of medical ethics, a place where the compass spins, all bearings are confused, and many may founder.