In Hippocratic oaths the physician and philosopher Raymond Tallis yokes together his diverse intellectual interests to address important questions about our well-being. In a series of stimulating and impassioned arguments he establishes the truth about, among many other things, recent health scares, explains why patients compete for our doctors' and nurses' time; why the exploding popularity of alternative therapies is actually bad for our health; and how one man's view of the MMR vaccine influenced a nation. Hippocratic Oaths is the summation of a lifetime's thought and medical practice, by one of Britain's most original thinkers. It will, quite simply, change for ever the way we think about ourselves and our health.
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Tallis...is a high achiever with a range of expertise that would leave Jonathan Miller gasping.' -- Walter Ellis Sunday Times
‘A brilliant tract against the times.’ -- Frank Field, Spectator
‘Professor Tallis is a brilliant man, who puts his literary talents at the service of truth and humanity.’ -- Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph
‘A brilliant tract against the times.’ -- Frank Field, Spectator
‘Professor Tallis is a brilliant man, who puts his literary talents at the service of truth and humanity.’ -- Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
Raymond Tallis is Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester, and has published over 150 research papers, articles and textbooks. He is also a poet and a novelist as well as a renowned philosopher. And his recent work, Enemies of Hope, brings together his many strands of thought. The Raymond Tallis reader has recently been published by Macmillan. In 2004, Prospect magazine named him one of Britain's 100 most significant public intellectuals.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this lively and hard-hitting book, Raymond Tallis, Professor of Geriatrics at Manchester University, surveys the current state of British medicine.
He points out how much we all gain from the NHS. Britain is top of nine Western countries in years of life expectancy added for each 1% of GDP spent on health; the USA is ninth. We get 2.5 more years of good health than Americans do. Since 1950, we have gained five extra years of life due to improved medical care under the NHS, and infant mortality has fallen by 80%.
Yet, as Tallis reminds us, much of the media relishes only bad news about health care, fostering a culture of contempt focused on scandal and personalities, and scaremongering to attack the NHS. He cites shoddy reporting by Jeremy Laurance, Melanie Phillips, Anthony Browne, Will Hutton and Simon Heffer.
Tallis analyses the assault on MMR vaccination, started by Dr Andrew Wakefield's article. This was a preliminary study of just twelve children, with no control group, so it could not prove a link with autism, let alone a cause. But Wakefield immediately called a press conference to urge abandoning the triple vaccine. Tallis rightly calls this utterly irresponsible.
The media highlighted Wakefield's claim and ignored further research - two British studies, a Danish study of half a million children, and a Finnish study of 1.8 million children - which proved that there was no more autism among vaccinated children than among non-vaccinated children. The Danish study also found no link between the development of autism and age at vaccination or time since vaccination.
Tallis also criticises Peter Duesberg, who irresponsibly claimed that AIDS was not due to a virus.
... Read more ›23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a student nurse, I approached this book with interest.
Ray Tallis supplies a spirited and well-argued reposte to those who seek to portray doctors as aloof, over-empowered and arrogant. Instead Tallis argues that doctors are often disempowered and assailed by ill-informed pressure groups, a hysterical media and meddling politicians.
In places this leads Tallis to come across as something of a medicalised Grumpy Old Man, but it must be conceded that his points are valid and well-argued. Tallis' account of the recent hysteria over the MMR vaccine is excellent in particular. He relates how a single piece of dubious research led to a major panic, with some shockingly irresponsible and uninformed behaviour by campaigners, journalists and politicians that continued well after any link between the MMR vaccine and autism had been discredited by research.
Having read Hippocratic Oaths, I think I may have to be nicer to my doctor colleagues in future. :)
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By busygp
Format:Paperback
reasoned thoughtful overview of the politics of medicine, essential reading for todays health professionals,puts the stresses of the job in a rational context, and certainly helped me to make sense of the rapidly changing environment we work in.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Recommended by a medical colleague, certainly thoughtful, but a little heavy going and very few laughs in it. May improve on rereading.
By Sunny
Format:Paperback
First, a minor gripe to get off my chest: the book is a tad over-written. Sometimes to the point that while you begin by mentally applauding the erudition of Tallis' points and research in the first few paragraphs, you are exasperated as he spends a further 30 passages elaborating, re-elaborating and rephrasing the points already made. The middle part of the book, in particular the chapter "Enemies of Progress" which details the endless changes in the NHS governance and management in the last 5 decades, sags heavily by his relief-stricken polemical prose style (although by design, it accentuates the futility of the ceaseless superficial organisation-morphing and makes you see Tallis' point).
But look beyond the non-existent editing and this is one of the most intelligent summaries of medicine's current state in the UK that functions as a veritable intellectual anchor for those working in a cash and resource strapped, in-process-of-being-privatised NHS and need some background into its current state of affairs.
It delivers on its exploration of "contemporary discontents" with utmost conviction: from the newfound professional neurosis of communication skills to the culture of contempt and sensationalism bred by present day media, from hostility to research to misrepresentation of doctors: every word of his essays rings true as he takes us on a journey into the unfolding and aftermath of key medical scandals in the decade leading on to 2002. While published in 2004, this should not deter readers to go out and give this book a read, as the interminable reorganisation of the NHS continues, and the media's tone and approach to reporting that Tallis bemoans, has not surprisingly, remained the same.... Read more ›
But look beyond the non-existent editing and this is one of the most intelligent summaries of medicine's current state in the UK that functions as a veritable intellectual anchor for those working in a cash and resource strapped, in-process-of-being-privatised NHS and need some background into its current state of affairs.
It delivers on its exploration of "contemporary discontents" with utmost conviction: from the newfound professional neurosis of communication skills to the culture of contempt and sensationalism bred by present day media, from hostility to research to misrepresentation of doctors: every word of his essays rings true as he takes us on a journey into the unfolding and aftermath of key medical scandals in the decade leading on to 2002. While published in 2004, this should not deter readers to go out and give this book a read, as the interminable reorganisation of the NHS continues, and the media's tone and approach to reporting that Tallis bemoans, has not surprisingly, remained the same.... Read more ›
17 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Tallis potrays the current state of the NHS very well in this book with a great philisophical angle. As someone applying to study medicine, it illustrates very well what I'm going to deal with in the future and also has opened up perspectives of medicine that I haven't perceived before. I would recommend this book to all people who have had, do have or will have ties with the NHS (other than being a patient of it) especially prospective medical students, people associated with the governing bodies of the NHS and also people who side with the tabloids against doctors. A well earnt 4*'s.
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