Patients are harmed (again), fingers point. What's wrong?

Wrong Again—Rejoinder to Annas

1. Fenton E, Arras J. Bioethics and human rights: Curb your enthusiasm. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2010;19:127–133 (this issue). 2. Annas GJ. American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005:xvi. 3. Annas GJ. The American right to health. Hastings Center Report 2009;39(5):3. 4. See note 2, Annas 2005:160–2. See also, e.g....

The set point revisited, again.

Caring for patients harmed by treatment.

Patients and relatives may suffer in two ways from injuries due to treatment. Firstly, from the injury itself and, secondly, from the way the incident is handled afterwards. Many people harmed by their treatment suffer further trauma through the incident being handled insensitively and inadequately. Conversely, when staff come forward, acknowledge the damage, and take the necessary action the o...

All models are wrong.

As the field of phylogeography has continued to move in the model-based direction, researchers continue struggling to construct useful models for inference. These models must be both simple enough to be tractable yet contain enough of the complexity of the natural world to make meaningful inference. Beyond constructing such models for inference, researchers explore model space and test competin...

All models are wrong.

A NESTHESIOLOGISTS are master pharmacologists. In the course of our training, we learn that certain types of drugs, the hypnotics, suppress consciousness. We learn that other types of drugs, the analgesics, suppress nociception. Through training and experience, we learn to induce oblivion with judicious combinations of hypnotics and analgesics. We learn to leverage the synergistic interaction o...