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Recently at a meeting there was some raucous laughter and gentle
derision when it was recounted that at one disciplinary tribunal certain
members had genuine and very great difficulty in understanding that the
performance of
half the doctors in the country was below average. It was concluded that
innumeracy was a significant problem among lawyers. It was therefore
an occassion of some dismay to read in a scientific journal, (BMJ
28/11/1998 p1475) that the British Transplantation Society is to
establish minimum
standards so that those centres performing below par match the output of
the average UK centre. Either there is to be a concommittant reduction in
the output of the most productive centres or else those under performing
centres will forever be chasing a chimera. More signifcantly the aim is
to
dramatically increase the number of transplants to 75+ p.a. per unit.
Does the Society have a secret novel way of increasing the supply of
donor organs? Or is this pronouncement just so much political posturing?
The law of averages
Recently at a meeting there was some raucous laughter and gentle
derision when it was recounted that at one disciplinary tribunal certain
members had genuine and very great difficulty in understanding that the
performance of
half the doctors in the country was below average. It was concluded that
innumeracy was a significant problem among lawyers. It was therefore
an occassion of some dismay to read in a scientific journal, (BMJ
28/11/1998 p1475) that the British Transplantation Society is to
establish minimum
standards so that those centres performing below par match the output of
the average UK centre. Either there is to be a concommittant reduction in
the output of the most productive centres or else those under performing
centres will forever be chasing a chimera. More signifcantly the aim is
to
dramatically increase the number of transplants to 75+ p.a. per unit.
Does the Society have a secret novel way of increasing the supply of
donor organs? Or is this pronouncement just so much political posturing?
Yours sincerely
Dr.P.J.Tomlin
Radnor House, Downton, Wiltshire
Competing interests: No competing interests