The Book that Changed My Life

The Virus That Changed My World

When I first read this little poem in The Lancet in January 2003 (Heikkinen and Jarvinen 2003), it elicited little more than a bemused chortle. There are few who would deny the paradox that for all the medical advances providing cures for multitudinous diseases afflicting the human condition, there remains a large hole in the understanding of and treatment for the common cold. We know that it i...

Book Review: My Life in Court

ICU Cornestone: A lecture that changed my practice

In 1982, the author attended a lecture by Professor Joseph Civetta dealing with the concept that, at times, the goal of care should be comfort rather than cure, and that inappropriate care prolonged dying and suffering. Efforts to improve end-of-life care subsequent to this had effects on care at a local level and at a state level. Intensive care providers should be leaders in the provision of ...

A 1955 clinical trial report that changed my career.

In 1955, during the dawn of the modern era of randomized clinical trials, Thomas Chalmers and his colleagues published a remarkable paper. It was then and probably remains one of the most detailed reports of clinical trials ever published: it begins with a Table of

A patient that changed my practice chroni polyne with in The fi rst

A patient that changed my practice chroni polyne with in The fi rst