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Where does public health fit with the NHS?
Public health is a privileged subject for doctors, for most
doctors spend their time treating people; pulling people out of the
fast flowing river of disease progression. We are lucky because we
have been given the job of running up the bank to see who is
throwing them in.
In addition, because our early work was involved with epidemics
of disease, we use epidemiology (gedditt??) to study these. This
means that we spend quite a lot of time measuring stuff, especially
whether treating patients works or not. I have mentioned that lots
of people get better spontaneously, so it needs some care to work
out if we are fooling our patients and, equally importantly,
ourselves into thinking that the latest snake oil works.
Why health policy?
Health policy is interesting, honest, because it looks at the
join between health services and politics. it is never dull, because
some nutty politician will have a nutty idea (usually in his or her
bath) about reorganising the health service. Then the poor old
health service has to try to implement it, without the benefit of a
warm bath.
What is epidemiology of ageing?
The most fascinating subject. For instance, it deals
with living forever, a subject of interest to most living things. It
deals with why humans are living longer at the rate of six hours a
day, with no sign of the rate falling off. Go on, tell me that's not
interesting.
Click here for more
Editing and teaching (and some writing)
I edit the
British Medical Bulletin, which aims to produce
high quality reviews of subjects at the edge of science and
medicine. Some of it is pretty dense, but some of the ethical
topics, for instance the ethics of sex selection, the ethics of
having bilateral breast removal in women at high risk of breast
cancer. In the past I edited the Journal of Public Health and wrote
some stuff, which is detailed here.
And teaching; well three quarters of all medical students are
young beautiful females. What can I say?
Photos
A few photos over the years here.
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