Laughter - the antidote for a hard day's work | |
A skeptic's medical dictionary. Michael O'Donnell. London: BMJ Publishing Group 1997 (209pp.). ISBN: 0 7279 1204 6. |
You won't be disappointed by the fun-poking humour of one of Britain's leading medical iconoclasts and most talented linguistic wits. After ten years in general practice, Michael O'Donnell established himself as writer and intellectual. He edited World Medicine for 16 years, and not only chaired the BBC's My Word program but also wrote many of the questions. He is a well-published skeptic about things regarded by doctors as holy writ. Some readers will be familiar with a previous work, An insider's guide to the games doctors play. This is a book to relax with after a hard day's work, with greater benefit than the customary alcohol. His delicately phrased demolition of the health bureaucracy and its political masters is a delight. Everyone should appreciate these redefinitions: "Bed shortage: Myth perpetuated by nurses and doctors to embarrass politicians who know that the problem is not too few but too many beds." "Committee: A group in which the politely diffident are manipulated by the politically ambitious." Epidemiologists will approve of "Cigarettes: Source of the only lethal drug which can be sold legally on the streets." Devotees of evidence-based medicine will delight in "Clinical experience: Making the same mistakes with increasing confidence over an impressive number of years." Junior doctors will agree about "Career structures: Shackles for the young designed by their elders." Patients will appreciate "Consent: Form given to patients not to read but to sign." And, of course, the lawyers will seize on "Blame: Something that someone has to shoulder after any mishap." Peter C Arnold
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