Commentary: Bad medicine and bad educational practice

Bad Theory, Bad Practice: Bad Ethics

A profession that claims to understand economies, and that has gained power over the greater part of our societies, has big responsibilities. The fundamental responsibility is to ensure its perception of economies gives some useful guidance to the behaviour of real economies. Here mainstream economics fails utterly, and has been failing for a long time. Worse, it actively resists alternative vi...

Bad medicine

In his new book Ben Goldacre argues that the pharmaceutical industry is in poor health and in urgent need of treatment. Richard Smith agrees.

Gastrostomies in dementia: bad practice or bad evidence?

Benzodiazepines: good or bad medicine?

Editorial T his month Canadian Family Physician presents the results of a survey of Belgian family physicians, which was designed to elicit their attitudes toward prescribing benzodiazepines (BZDs) and the barriers they perceived to nonpharmacologic methods as alternative ways to manage stress, anxiety, and insomnia (page e398). Anthierens and colleagues 1 remind us how widespread the use of BZ...

Bad Medicine: Good medicine - the GP paramedic.

I am old school. I think that craft beers taste like urine, tofu tastes like polystyrene, and that posting your life all over social media is tasteless. I feel lucky to be a doctor; it’s a privilege not a burden. I also don’t buy into the idea that doctors are the most gifted and caring people in our society, because it just isn’t true. Becoming a doctor is much more about privilege than abilit...