Editor's choice

Steady on reducing antenatal care, but pull those ears

Epidemiologists love hard data. They like to know whether people are dead or alive. They can count that with confidence. Doctors are less demanding but still like to see evidence of objective improvement in their patients: indeed, they may be happy when a hypertensive patient's blood pressure is coming down even if he or she is feeling worse. Patients, on the other hand, are much concerned with things such as how they feel, how well the doctor communicates, and whether they have confidence in their doctors Đ things that are annoyingly hard to measure. Epidemiologists, doctors, and patients …