There is a lot of talk in recent times about doctors needing to be resilient to be able to handle the stresses and strains of the job better, rather than getting depressed or suicidal. I welcome the attention that is being brought to these important issues. It is...
At the graveside they still talk about judgement, intelligence, and the wisdom that is the practice of medicine. Deans and healthcare leaders wax poetic as they tell stories of great cures to lift in memoriam remarkable healers. Yet, though we bow to Hippocrates,...
A recent paper in the Medical Journal of Australia (here) provides a nice overview of the biases that lead doctors to overtreat and overinvestigate, but also offers useful solutions that we need to act on. A cognitive bias is where existing beliefs persist in the face...
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...
This will be a test of how unbiased I am. Writing a review of my own book (regardless of any bias) seems like shameless self-promotion, but what the hell, it’s better than just saying “Hey, I wrote a book”. In Surgery, the ultimate placebo Professor...
