In the movie Jerry Maguire there is famous line from the main character who yells “show me the money”. Following the money will usually explain much of what may on the surface appear to be nonsense. It also works in reverse. Looking where the money is going to can be...
Recently, a paper written by researchers at John Hopkins asserted that medical error was the third leading cause of the death in the United States. This received – as you might imagine – considerable coverage in the media. The researchers proposed that death...
Humans like being scared. The popularity of horror films and “ghost train” rides are testament to that. In times gone by scary stories would be told around campfires. Many fairy tales are full of ghost goblins, wolves and other “critters” seeking to harm or kill...
Three separate articles neatly summed up the issues facing healthcare as the year ends. None are exactly new. All three covered separate aspects of what are the central problems. And that is the medicalization of life with the extension of diagnosis to over diagnosis,...
We are constantly fed doom and gloom stories in health. There is a crisis of this or a tsunami of that. This is despite life expectancy continuously increasing for over 100 years. The claims of crisis are inevitably accompanied by a plea for government funding for...
Regular readers know my view on hectoring health “experts” who are detached from the real world. This excellent extract from “Skin in the game” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains the phenomenon, we see in many areas of life. – Dr Joe What we have been seeing worldwide,...
