I have just been browsing on the new FT beta site. Coupled with Medium, quartz and the Intercept as examples, we have eventually rediscovered what the typographers learned hundreds of years ago [even look at my homepage!] Text, benefits from space; and narrow text blocks work even better. Rich DeMillo doesn’t follow, but the content more than makes up. He is blogging again now that his new book has been published. Recommended.

Howard Green has died. I only met him once, although interacted with Jim Rheinwald a little more a long time back when I was the cancer section editor for the J. Invest Dermatol. I am never certain whether the technology ever delivered as much as people wanted, but Green always struck me as a scientist of the old school (and I say that with fondness).

Great video from Bruce Schneier (in the Economist’s words, ‘the security guru’). A number of reasons for posting. First, re his comments on 23andme, we will see an attempt to link individual medical records with state security. Whereas once, society would demarcate safe-havens (journalist enquiry, legal representation, medical care), this may no longer hold in the future. In the UK, I doubt any online medical records are private in the sense that we once understood that term. The second reason, is of course that although Schneier’s background was in cryptography, it is his breadth of knowledge as a public intellectual that makes listening to him so compelling, and at the same time shines a not so flattering light on too much of UK academia. Third, his views on social change are nuanced — but still he is an optimist. A great summary of one of the key issues of our time.

Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas.

Paul Graham  |   [direct link to this aside] 

‘What specialty do you have your eyes on?’  ‘Australia’

To a student from mainland Europe. ‘What do you think is better — or at least different — here from home?’  ‘We wouldn’t be having this conversation at home: students aren’t allowed to talk to professors, that is what the assistants are for.’

In a discussion about overcrowding in the library, and the ‘towels on the sun lounger’ syndrome.  ‘If you don’t need to use the library books, why study in the library.’  ‘We don’t have to pay for keeping warm in the library’

“Money spent that makes a population more economically productive by getting people off sick leave and back to work is an investment. Money spent that gives people illnesses they were not complaining off, puts them on treatments that make them less economically competent, treatments that cause more death and disability than they alleviate, comes close to being a tax on us and our jobs but paid to corporations rather than government.”

David Healy |  [direct link to this aside] 

“Germany justifiably takes pride in its long tradition, and high standards, in science. So what is going so badly wrong in its medical faculties? In most countries, medical students receive their medical degree — and ‘Dr’ title — after successfully completing both preclinical undergraduate studies and clinical training, and then passing a state examination. Not so in Germany, where the degree gives them only the right to practise medicine — not to title themselves Dr. To acquire that honour, an extra step is required: a research project leading to a thesis, done, written up and published in the student’s spare time…..

But it makes no sense to maintain the requirement for a quick-and-dirty thesis, which adds stress to medical students who are already under immense pressure, while teaching them little beyond the dangerous lesson that it is acceptable for medical science to be sloppy.”

Nature on some Teutonic folly (the German speaking world gets their folly in before the name Dr. Dr etc, whereas we Brits restrict it to after..). [direct link to this aside] 

A new welcome video for our Edinburgh Medical School dermatology module. Judging by the gesticulation, I must have some Italian blood in me (or so somebody tells me).

I feel a sense of guilt that some of our medical students spend money on additional tuition (beyond what they pay my employer). Some sign up for online courses, others pay for cramming sessions for finals. I do not know how effective some of these courses or resources are (different students give me different answers). It reminds me of paying for private schooling, then hiring tutors in the evenings. I am not sure my guilt is entirely rational: failing finals for instance is traumatic, and will result in a loss of income. It may be quite rational to reduce that risk,if you can afford it. And of course, I do not object or think it unreasonable that students buy books, so why complain about other resources such as online lectures. I am however interested in the money back guarantees on some sites and, out with medicine how some universities say they well reimburse half your fees if you are not in relevant employment (University of Law). Giving the issues about FY jobs for our medical students, the latter deserves some consideration.

Just because some colleagues  asked: