Abstract
The beauty of medicine is that it can be as narrow or as broad as you want it to be. It is a profession to suit your personality. Medicine can be your end destination, or it can be a passage to a different career. The training and development that doctors experience prepares them for many different roles, allowing them to pursue any enthusiasm.
Many younger doctors now combine their passion for technology and medical training to launch new ventures and allow their entrepreneurial spirit to flourish. Qiui and Ashrafian argue that medical education must reflect and support these innovative ambitions. 1
Doctors have always been knowledge brokers, and it is the one skill, if you accept that artificial intelligence will never truly replicate human thinking, that will endure even as the profession continues to transform and modernise. Sometimes culture and research can be combined, as was the case in examining reopening of cultural events after the pandemic. 2
One way that doctors have traditionally diversified and brokered knowledge is through arts and literature. Once you delve into these worlds you begin to understand the immense contributions that doctors have made, informing their work with their medical experiences but also satiating the fascination of the public for medical matters. Martin McKee reminds us of some of the notable medical contributors to arts and literature, as he considers how communication has evolved from quill and parchment to photoshop and podcast. 3
The January issue of JRSM takes an even more lateral view of medicine than usual. In these miserable days of worsening health outcomes, shattered professional morale, and deteriorating societies, what could be better than to enjoy and learn from new innovations, arts and literature, and witchcraft. Delving into the murky history of heresy and divine revelations, this month’s article from the James Lind Library uncovers the surprising origins of placebo controlled trials 4