Personal feelings and medical journals

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7440.0-g

BMJ 2004;328 (13 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7440.0-g

Editor's choice

Personal feelings and medical journals

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A good poem will evoke different thoughts, feelings, and imagesin each reader. A medical journal is not like that. Mostly afterreading an article we probably think thoughts that are similarand not so far from those the authors wanted us to think. Butwe do all bring something different to our reading, and thosedifferences—particularly if they are powerful feelings—willinfluence our reading.

As I read the paper by Jack Wennberg and others on death inhighly respected American hospitals (p 607) I thought of thedeath of my father. He died last week aged 81. He was a good(and very funny) man who lived a good life and died a good death—courtesyof the NHS. In America he might not have been so lucky. Wennbergand others look at use of healthcare resources in the 77 "besthospitals" in the United States and find . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Smith, editor

(rsmith@bmj.com)

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