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The answer could be very simple indeed. Those respective authors
decided themselves according to their own muscle on the length of their
contribution (not the BMJ). However, the idea is that if someone feels
strongly about this subject, he/she may consider writing his/her own obit
(the electronic pages safely accommodate kilometres of it) and entrust
his/her chosen executor to post it to the BMJ as a rapid response (note
that here, the word rapid becomes utterly irrelevant).
Why have you adopted the practice of printing obituaries of (usually)
obscure foreign doctors in considerable detail? For instance your lead
obituary in the 30 October issue devotes 330 column cm to Thure von
Uexkull, which might be of interest only to a handful of psychosomatic
practitioners, whereas you allot only 80 column cm to the late Katharina
Dalton. I would venture to suggest that Dr Dalton's contribution to the
welfare of patients was immeasurably greater than that of Dr Uexkull. Are
you biased in favour of foreigners or do you dismiss Dr Dalton because she
only treated women?
Re: Obituaries
The answer could be very simple indeed. Those respective authors
decided themselves according to their own muscle on the length of their
contribution (not the BMJ). However, the idea is that if someone feels
strongly about this subject, he/she may consider writing his/her own obit
(the electronic pages safely accommodate kilometres of it) and entrust
his/her chosen executor to post it to the BMJ as a rapid response (note
that here, the word rapid becomes utterly irrelevant).
Competing interests:
postmortem anxieties
Competing interests: No competing interests