interferon alpha (cancer drug) 147
intra-epithelial lymphocyte 15
Ioannidis, Despina 49
Ioannidis, John 48–9, 66, 75, 87–90, 91, 92
Irish Health Service 124
Irish Platform for Patient Organizations, Science and Industry (IPPOSI) 136
Irish Times 124, 136, 246
iron lung 5
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) 49, 103–4, 108, 109
Jamison, Leslie, The Empathy Exams 241
Jarman, Professor Sir Brian 213–17, 219, 220, 224, 226
Jewkes, John 164
Johnson, Alan 218, 219
Johnson, Lyndon B. 211
Jones, Sir Francis Avery 30, 34, 36, 77
Journal of Cereal Science 116
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 90
Journal of Clinical Oncology 143–4, 147
Journal of the American Medical Association 64, 71
junior doctors 14, 20, 82, 205, 207
Kahneman, Daniel 102
Kelly, Kevin 184
Kelsey, Tim 216, 217
Kennedy, Sir Ian 190, 194, 215, 221
Keogh, Sir Bruce 213, 221, 223, 224
Kevles, Daniel 58
‘key opinion leaders’ 135
kidney cancer 146–7
Kilner, James 238–9
King’s College Hospital, London 202
Kissinger, Henry 183
Koch, Tom 255
Kozubek, Jim 68
Krigel, Anna 121
Krugman, Paul 165–6
Kurzweil, Ray 174
Laker, Dr Mike 224
Lancet Commission on Alleviating the Access Abyss in Palliative Care and Pain Relief (2017) 265
Lancet (journal) 31–2, 33, 36–7, 78, 245
Lancet Oncology (journal) 156
Lansley, Andrew 220
Lazarsfeld, Paul 127
Lebwohl, Benjamin 121
Legge, Sir Thomas, Industrial Maladies 251
LeMay, General Curtis 210
Lemon, Roger 238–9
leukaemia 147
leukaemia, acute lymphoblastic 68
Levine, Samuel 171
Levinovitz, Alan, The Gluten Lie 117
life expectancy 6, 50, 126, 147–8
Lilford, Professor Richard 217
LinkedIn 180
Lipitor (statin) 96
liver biopsy 41
liver transplantation 42–3
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 79, 145, 267–8
Lost Art of Healing, The (Lown) 171
Lown, Bernard, The Lost Art of Healing 171
lung cancer 78–9, 149–51, 152
lung disease (in miners) 80
Lyme disease 109
Lyttleton, Raymond 114
McCormack, Melissa 179
McCormick, James, Follies and Fallacies in Medicine 114, 270
McCoy, David 69–70
McDonnell, Anthony 246
McDowell, Michael 200
McElreath, Richard 54–6
McKeown, Thomas 8, 259
McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario 81–2
McMichael, Sir John 41
Macmillan Cancer Support 127
McNamara, Craig 211
McNamara, Robert Strange 209–13, 227
Macnaughton, Jane 245
Magic Mountain, The (Mann) 3
Mahler, Dr Halfdan 260
Mail on Sunday 226
malnutrition 3, 80, 105
managerialism 195, 227–8, 232–3
Mandrola, John 182
Mann, Thomas, The Magic Mountain 3
Marshall, Barry 36–7, 38
Marteau, Theresa 71
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 175
Maxwell, Robert 62–3
May & Baker (‘M&B’, pharmaceutical company) 1
McDonald’s analogy 228–9
‘McNamara Fallacy’, definition 212
Meades, Jonathan 243
Medawar, Sir Peter 74
Medical Aid Society (Welsh) 169–70
Medical Humanities 243
medical journals 59–60, 86
Medical Nemesis (Illich) 7, 8–9
medical profession 190–208
medical research 13–23, 47, 52–9, 67–8, 92
Medical Research Council 4, 78, 86
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York 147
mental illness 126
Merck Pharmaceuticals 86
Merton, Robert 127
Meskó, Bertalan 183
meta-analyses 83, 90, 92, 133, 147–8
microbiologists 255–6
Miinome (US) 180
Milburn, Alan 189, 216, 233
milk 123
Mirage of Health (Dubos) 257–9
Mission of the University (Ortega y Gasset) 101
Mohammed, Dr M. A. 217
molecular medicine 50
Montross, Christine 247
moral responsibilities 163, 171
morbidity 93, 94, 257
morphine 96
mortality rates
children 84, 105
hospital 190, 225–6, 232
maternal 6
sepsis 131
See also Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio (HSMR)
motor neurone disease (MND) 127
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) 236
MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) 192
Mulcahy, Professor Risteard 260
Munchausen’s syndrome 31–2
Murdoch, Rupert 183
myocardial infarction (heart attack) 84, 85–6
‘narcotizing dysfunction’ 127
‘Narrative Medicine’ 240, 243–4
National Cancer Act (US) 141–2
National Cancer Institute, Ontario 143–4
National Defense Research Council 40
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) 145, 150, 152
National Stroke Programme, Irish 124
Nature (journal) 32, 73
negligence, medical 197
neonatology 82
neuroscience 236–7
New England Journal of Medicine 70, 71–2, 73, 86–7, 131, 151
New Statesman 239
New York Review of Books 74
New York Times 80
NHS (National Health Service)
Care.data 180
current challenges 159–60
established 43, 162, 163, 170
hospitals 164, 222
and infection 192
and internal market 164
lack of compassion 222, 250
rationing in 161
scandals 189–90
targets 209
teaching hospitals 41
nivolumab (cancer drug) 150–2
Nixon, Richard 141–2, 154
Nobel Prize for Medicine 36, 38
non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) 103, 104, 109–12, 121
NormannPartners UK (management consultancy) 168–9
nosology (classification of diseases) 103
Novartis (pharmaceutical company) 68
novels, medical 23–6
‘number needed to treat’ (NNT) 84
nursing homes 94, 96
Nutrients (journal) 110
Obama, Barack 142–3
obstetrics 82
O’Donnell, Michael 31
Office of Health Economics, London 256
Ogoshi, Kazuei 33
O’Mahony family 1–2
O’Morain, Colm 36
oncologists 143, 146, 149–51, 153–4
O’Neill, Onora 194
online patient communities 177, 180
operations see surgical procedures
organ transplantation 42–3
Orkambi (cystic fibrosis drug) 246
Ortega y Gasset, José, Mission of the University 101
orthopaedic procedures 5, 132
Orwell, George, Animal Farm 4
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br /> Our Final Century (Rees) 255
over-prescribing (‘polypharmacy’) 93–6
P-hacking 56, 57
Page, Larry 179
palliative care 200–1, 265–6
Pappworth, Maurice, Human Guinea Pigs 41–2
paralysis 5
Paris, Joel 72
‘patient-oriented evidence that matters’ (POEMs) 84
patient-support groups 122–3, 135–6, 139, 146, 177–8, 246
Patient Will See You Now, The (Topol) 176
Patient’s Charter 229
patients, seeing 97–9
PatientsLikeMe (online community) 177
penicillin 1
Pergamon Press 62–3
Perlmutter, David, Grain Brain 114–15, 116
Personal Genome Project (PGP) 180
Pfizer (pharmaceutical company) 96, 181
pharmaceutical companies 67, 136 see also individual names
Philanthrocapitalism 67–70
Philosophy of Evidence-based Medicine, The (Howick) 87
phrenic nerve 3
phrenology 237
physicists 23
placebos 4, 85, 110
Platt, John 51, 119
PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine 88–9
pneumoconiosis see lung disease (in miners)
pneumothorax 3
Poeppel, David 237
poliomyelitis (polio) 5–6
Pollock, Allyson 193
‘polypharmacy’ (over-prescribing) 93–6
Poole, Steven 239
Popper, Karl 99
Porter, Roy, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind 45, 203
post-modernism 242
‘postcode prescribing’ 146
potassium depletion 95
poverty 3, 51
Powell, Enoch, A New Look at Medicine and Politics 159–61, 162, 163–4
pravastatin (statin) 85–6
pre-Reformation papacy 75
‘Precision’ medicine 152–3
pressure groups 218
preventive drugs 86, 93
private finance initiative (PFI) schemes 164
private healthcare 150, 174
private sector, and health care 164
probability value (p-value) 56
problem-based learning 81–2
progress, scientific 253–68
Prometheus 264
protocol-driven care 101, 133–4
pseudo-diseases 103
psychiatry 125–6
psychosomatic conditions 49, 101, 109, 112
public health 8
pulmonary embolus (PE) 132
pulmonary TB 3, 5
Quantified Self movement 184–5
raising awareness 121–3, 125–30, 133, 135–9
Ramachandran, V. S. 238, 248
randomized controlled trials (RCT)
first 4, 78
fluid retention 80
influential 90
lung cancer 151
for metastatic cancers 143–4
new drugs 83
reliance on 92
Raspe, R. E., Singular Travels … 32
rationing, NHS 161
rations 2
Rees, Martin, Our Final Century 255
Reinhardt, Uwe 167
Reith Lectures 194
Rennie, Drummond 64
Replication Crisis 54
rheumatism, soft-tissue 101
Riess, Dr Helen 240
Robinson, Sir Gerry 228
Roosevelt, Franklin D. 40
Rory Staunton Foundation for Sepsis Prevention 128–9, 131
Rory’s Regulations 129
Rosbaud, Paul 62
Royal College of Physicians of Ireland 167
Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) 41
Royal Society Open Science (journal) 54–5
Roylance, Dr John 190
Ruane, Dr Thomas J. 67
Saatchi, Maurice 129
Sabin, Albert 6
Sackett, David, Clinical Epidemiology: A Basic Science for Clinical Medicine 22, 81, 82, 83, 90–1
St Stephen’s Hospital (Cork sanatorium) 5
Salinas, Dr Joel, Mirror Touch: Notes from a Doctor Who Can Feel Your Pain 247, 248–9
Salk, Jonas 6
sanatoria 3, 5
scandals, NHS 189–90
schizophrenia 126
Schoenfeld, Jonathan 89
Sci-Hub (website) 65
Science (journal) 51
science journals 49, 56
Science: the Endless Frontier (Bush) 40
scientific publishers 61–5
Scotland 230–1
screening programmes 138, 152, 173, 183
Second World War 1, 40, 105, 162, 210
Seife, Charles 178–9
Sellu, David 197
sepsis 128–34, 256
Sepsis Six criteria 130
septicaemia 128
Shaw, George Bernard 270
Shaw, Joanne 232
Sherlock, Sheila 42
Shipman, Harold 190, 195
Shultz, George 183
side effects, drug 85, 94–5, 97
Singer, Mervyn 131–2
Singular Travels, Campaigns and Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Raspe) 32
‘Sisyphus syndrome’ 160–1
Skrabanek, Petr
‘coercive healthism’ 185
consensus conferences 113
The Death of Humane Medicine 186
Follies and Fallacies in Medicine 114
scepticism 92
and WHO 260
Smaldino, Paul 54–6
smallpox 6–7
smear testing see cervical screening
Smith, Dame Janet 189, 190
Smith, Kline & French (pharmaceutical company) 30, 35–6
Smith, Richard
on health care 165, 266
on Illich 8
on medical publishers 64, 65
on pharmaceutical companies 262
on social contract 202
smoking 78–9
‘social iatrogenesis’ 185
social media 73, 127–8, 199
Social Text (journal) 243
Sokal, Alan 243
Spiegelhalter, Sir David 225–6
Stafford Hospital
lessons learnt 233, 235
scandal 190, 213, 217–22, 224
target culture 229
Stanford Medical School 182
statins 85–6, 95, 95–6, 256
statisticians 78, 88–9, 225, 267
Staunton, Ciaran 128, 129, 130
Staunton, Rory 128, 132
stigma 3
Stockholm Resilience Centre 255
streptomycin (antbiotic) 4
sulfapyridine (antbiotic) 1
Sullivan, Professor Richard 145
Sunday Telegraph 224
Sunday Times 216
Sunday Times Magazine 149
Sunitinib (‘Sutent’, cancer drug) 146–7
surgical procedures
abdominal 34–5
cardiac 190, 215
hip replacement 132
TB 3
Sweeney, Kieran 97–8
Symposium on the Reproducibility and Reliability of Biomedical Research (2015) 56–8
synaesthesia 247–8
Tainter, Joseph 267
Taiwan 167
Tallis, Raymond, Hippocratic Oaths 244
target culture 229–31
breaches 206
and managerialism 195, 209, 213, 250
and research 48
Target (retail company) 176
Tate, Ian 261
Taylor, Roger 216–17, 232
teaching hospitals, NHS 20–1, 41, 45
Tennant, Jon 66
Thatcher, Margaret 28, 47–8, 164, 171, 194
The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson film) 247–9
Theranos (health tech firm) 183–4
Thiel, Peter 69
Thomas, Lewis 7
Tolstoy, Leo, The Death of Ivan Ilyich 242
Topol, Eric, The Patient Will See You Now 175–6, 179–80, 183, 184
tracking devices, health 176–7
trials, ethically suspect 16–17
trials, randomized controlled (RCT) see randomized controlled trials (RCT)
Trinity College Dublin Medical School 92, 128
trusts, hospital 164, 194, 201, 215, 217, 220, 223–4
tuberculosis (TB) 2–5, 262
chest 78
deaths from 3, 4
pulmonary 3, 5
spinal 2
Tunnel at the End of the Light, The (Cotton) 34
Tversky, Amos 102
21st Century Cures Act (US, 2016) 149
23andMe 178–9
type 2 diabetes 117
typhoid 5
ulcers, peptic 31, 34–5, 36–8, 79, 262
‘Understanding the FreeFrom consumer’ (YouGov) 115
United European Gastroenterology 167–8
United States (US)
healthcare 4, 167, 173, 266
National Cancer Act 141–2
research 40
vaccinations 3, 6
van de Kamer, Jan 106
Varadkar, Leo 128
Varmus, Harold 72–3
venous thromboembolism (VTE) 132–3
Venter, Craig 70, 73, 173, 174
Verghese, Abraham 182
Vietnam War 211, 227
VIGOR study (2000) 86–7
Vioxx (anti-inflammatory drugs) 86
virologists 154
Visick, Arthur Hedley 37
Vrecko, Scott 237
Walgreen (pharmacy chain) 184
Wall Street Journal 184
Warren, Robin 36–7, 38
Watson, James 63, 70
Weatherall, Sir David 250–1
Weinberg, Robert 72, 154–6, 262
Welfare State 163
Wellcome Open Research 65
Wellcome Trust 242
Wessely, Professor Sir Simon 125–6
West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (1995) 85–6
Westaby, Stephen 232
wheat 105–6, 114, 116–17
Wheat Belly (Davis) 114–15, 116
Wilde, William 3
Wile E. Coyote (character) 10
Williams, Roger 42–3
Wilson, Anthony 146–7
Wise, Peter 148
Wisheart, James 190
Wojcicki, Anne 178, 179
Wolf, Gary 184
World Health Organization (WHO) 7, 166–7, 259–61
Wright, Ronald, A Short History of Progress 266–7
Yankelovich, Daniel 212
Yeates, Martin 218, 219
YouTube 178
Zuckerberg, Mark 67–8
About Seamus O’Mahony
SEAMUS O’MAHONY is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at Cork University Hospital. He is Associate Editor for Medical Humanities of the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and is a regular contributor to the Dublin Review of Books.
Also by Seamus O’Mahony
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