Richard Smith
CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
FMedSci is a British
medical doctor, editor, and businessman.
He is director of the Ovations initiative to combat chronic disease in the developing world. The initiative is funding centres in China, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Tunisia, Tanzania, South Africa, Central America, and the US Mexico border. He is also chairman of the board of directors of
Patients Know Best.
Previously he was chief executive of UnitedHealth Europe, a subsidiary of the
UnitedHealth Group
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is an American multinational managed healthcare and insurance company based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. It offers health care products and insurance services. UnitedHealth Group is the world's seventh largest ...
that works with public health systems in Europe. Before that he was editor of the ''
BMJ'' (previously the ''British Medical Journal''), and chief executive of the
BMJ Group. Smith worked for the ''BMJ'' for twenty-five years, from 1979 to 2004, the last thirteen as editor.
Smith is a proponent of
open access publishing
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
. He was editor of the ''BMJ'' when the journal first moved to online publishing, and made the journal's archives freely available. He sits on the board of directors of the
Public Library of Science
PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012 ) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and laun ...
br>
an open access publisher of scientific and medical research. He was editor in chief of the open-access ''
Cases Journal'', which aimed to create a database of medical
case report In medicine, a case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrenc ...
He is an honorary professor at the
University of Warwick
, mottoeng = Mind moves matter
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £7.0 million (2021)
, budget = £698.2 million (2020 ...
and a member of the governing council of St George's, University of London.
He is a founding Fellows of the
Academy of Medical Sciences
The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.
Its mission is to adv ...
, elected in 1998.
Having qualified in medicine in the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
, he worked in hospitals in Scotland and New Zealand before joining the BMJ. He also worked for six years as a television doctor with the BBC and TV-AM and has a degree in management science from the
Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Smith is the author of the book ''The Trouble with Medical Journals'' (2006, ), in which he contends that medical journals have become "creatures of the drug industry", rife with fraudulent research and packed with articles ghost written by
pharmaceutical
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field an ...
companies. He has also written about the limitations and problems of the peer review process. In 2014, in an interview with ''
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...
'', he argued for criminalisation of research fraud.
His brother is comedian
Arthur Smith.
Views on cancer
In December 2014, Smith wrote on the BMJ blog that trying to find a cure for cancer was a waste of money, claiming that, "with love, morphine, and whisky", the disease is the best way to die.
His remarks provoked outrage. The British Medical Journal said:
Smith’s New Year’s Eve blog on thebmj.com about cancer offering the best death garnered global media coverage and triggered a social media storm from thousands of bereaved relatives and the parents of children with cancer. He was accused of “glibly glossing over the pain” of cancer, to quote Michael Broderick, one of the 173 respondents on thebmj.com.
Smith responded and tried to clarify some of his points in a follow-up blog post on 5 January.
References
External links
* me encanta como es que uno puede morir en paz porque ya no hay nadie que me respete o me valore
BMJJournals.com– 'Editor of the ''BMJ'' to take up new post', Zosia Kmietowicz, ''
British Medical Journal'' (29 May 2004)
BMJ Blogs: The BMJ – Richard Smith– Blog of Richard Smith on BMJ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Richard
Living people
British writers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni
Medical journal editors
Year of birth missing (living people)
People educated at the John Roan School
Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)