BaTHcE k Pages Contents Viewpoint

840 ON DOCTORS AND BOMBS supermarkets being brought in to colonise ESSAY As we take a step back from the events of the primary care. Management speak dominates The 21st century GP: summer, perhaps now it is possible to look the discourse, divide-and-rule is the modus physician and priest? Jim Pink, Lionel Jacobson rationally at the effects of the alleged terrorist operandi and drug company research rules and Mike Pritchard attacks in Glasgow and London on the the roost. League tables and other punitive medical profession in this country. measures are manifestations of the 842 Firstly, we need to recognise that the issues pathological culture of bullying and EDO Michael Lasserson are those of criminality and global politics and intimidation that defines transnational are in no way medico-legal or related to capitalist structures. Many diseases of 843 overseas recruitment procedures. We must affluence are actually diseases of ESSAY not succumb to the blind panic that overtook corporatism. From a non-patient’s perspective government and regulatory bodies following A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine in Peter Tomson the Shipman revelations. As a consequence Glasgow was stabbed in the middle of her of this ethos, a lawyer specialising in medical morning surgery. Are we now going to 844 negligence was put in charge of the suspect all patients and install CCTV in our REPORTAGE investigation and with stunning intellectual waiting and consulting-rooms? No, of course The 61st Edinburgh International Film Festival laziness, promptly succeeded in conflating not. Bad eggs do bad things, whether they David Watson criminality with competence issues. Dame are priests, patients, accountants, or doctors. Janet Smith has done a lot of good things in The anti-doctor atmosphere generated by a 846 her career, many of which I hugely respect, largely right-wing press perennially hostile to SERIAL A patient’s diary: but on this central point, I believe she was what they regard as the last bastion of episode 10 — simply wrong. The GMC caved-in and socialism in this country (but which more post-operative check up implemented a highly prescriptive system of accurately is a pillar of rational humanism) John Salinsky revalidation, regardless of the irony that helps to deflect anger away from the sources Shipman would be highly likely to have of power. The GMC needs to develop some 847 passed such an assessment with flying steel in its spine and we all need to stop being The meaning of cancer Mike Fitzpatrick colours. Similarly, following the aborted defensive. Otherwise, we risk playing into the attacks on Glasgow Airport and central hands of those who care nothing about the 848 London, in which a few doctors are alleged to health of nations. To paraphrase the old song: ESSAY have been involved, xenophobia overcame Let’s not be fooled again. The radical accuracy of the subjective viewpoint logic, with hysterical calls for the GMC to look Peter Davies at recruitment procedures for overseas Suhayl Saadi doctors. This same, stereotyping mentality 849 resulted in a wholly innocent man in Australia SERIAL Cogs in a machine being incarcerated for weeks-on-end while Neville Goodman the authorities there systematically lied in a way redolent of the Metropolitan Police in the 850 De Menezes case. In my opinion, the real Anatole Broyard, Rosie focus of our attention in this morass should and me Dougal Jeffries be the dynamic between the law enforcement, security and intelligence services, and the media in the UK. Above all, as doctors, we are rational, humanist beings — this is the basis for all science — and in the framing of policy we, and our organisations, must not succumb to hot-headed populism disguised as ‘concern for patient care’. Through logic, do we retain our humanity. Secondly, over the past 20 years there has been a sustained corporate attack on the values that underpin the NHS. Now we see

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