Page 32 - Delaware Medical Journal - September/October 2020
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FALSE POSITIVE:
A Year of Error, Omission, and Political Correctness in the New England Journal of Medicine
Theodore Dalrymple
Encounter Books, 2019, 248 pages, $17.79
James F. Lally, MD
There’s a certain cachet that attends
dutiful readers of the New England
Journal of Medicine. They’re allied with a circle of fellow readers that some might call elitist. Fairly or not, many believe that they guide the ever- changing currents of American medicine.
Readers of a like mind, oblivious to charges of intellectual pretentiousness, take pride in saying that they know what’s going on in medicine. They all read articles that appear faithfully every Thursday morning with a solemnity that embraces ex cathedra pronouncements, with at times an implied sense of infallibility.
Theodore Dalrymple, the author of False Positive, took on the unenviable endeavor of reviewing all of the articles in 2017. From each week’s journal, he selected
an article for which he wrote comments,
usually critical. In this Herculean task, Dalrymple challenges the imperiousness of the NEJM when he states: “I have had time to read journals with much closer attention and have come to realize how
Dalrymple is miffed at what he views
as “the sickly self-righteousness” of the journal and the “dead hand of political correctness” that is upon medical journals in general. His criticism of the NEJM reaches its apex with: “when it pronounces on social philosophy, as it often does, it reads like Pravda propaganda than enlightenment.
Some would say that Dalrymple’s quest is a fool’s errand, a quixotism. If it takes chutzpah (and talent) to sully what many consider the world’s most revered medical publication, Dalrymple seems up to the task. Theodore Dalrymple,
the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, certainly has the credentials.
While working as a psychiatrist in the East End of London and as a prison doctor in inner-city Birmingham, Daniels found time to polish his skills as of over 40 books. Several with medical themes include: Fool or Physician:
The Memoirs of a Skeptical Doctor (1987), An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Medicine (2001), and Second Opinion: A Doctor’s Notes from the Inner City (2009).
experiences as a psychiatrist and as
a prison doctor. How society treats
drug addicts, hardened out-of-luck criminals, and those clearly on the road to perdition is the focal point of many of his books and essays. With wry wit and
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