Editor's choice

A week of beginnings

A new ABC - of mental health - begins on p 1536 with Teifion Davies reminding us that more than a fifth of adults suffer from mental disorder at some time. We are ashamed that we have taken something like 20 years to get round to publishing this ABC, and our tardiness is probably something to do with the stigma of mental illness discussed by an anonymous general practitioner in a personal view (p 1559). He describes the psychotic illness of his own son and regrets that many of his colleagues are not more interested in chronic serious mental illness. Adrienne Reveley has, meanwhile, experienced a rise in her social standing - with hospital porters and her teenage son - because she has been advising Eastenders, Britain's most popular soap opera, on a character who develops schizophrenia (p 1560). The disease is, she says, "the last great stigma," and the aim of Eastenders in airing the subject is to reduce stigma.

Another series - on health in China - begins with an account of how health has evolved from the takeover of Mao Ze Dong in 1949 until the present (p 1549). The early days saw dramatic improvements because of better socioeconomic conditions, an emphasis on prevention, and almost universal access to health care. Now market reforms are leading to a widening gap between rich and poor.

Donald Irvine, president of Britain's General Medical Council, the body that regulates doctors, begins a two part series on the performance of doctors (p 1541). He reminds doctors that self regulation is a privilege, not a right, and argues that we need to do better. He does so in a week when we carry a news report on a consultant cardiologist admitting in court that "he had been prepared to put his name to articles that he had not read that were shot through with errors of such gravity that they could not be honest slips of the pen" (p 1501). This emerged in a case where the doctor was the plaintiff, suing a television programme for libel.

Finally, Trisha Greenhalgh reflects on the new picture that accompanies her column (p 1559) and Minerva begins a new life in cyberspace (p 1500). She will be accompanied soon by the full text of each issue of the journal and a broader range of letters than we have space to publish in the paper journal.