It is a hot, humid day in mid-June, 2011 in this remote village in Niger state, Nigeria. The state is in a low development region with poor health indicators. I am a newly qualified doctor and have just concluded a Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAs) assignment for the state office of the World Health Organization (WHO). […]

When I was a new graduate student of health policy, I was once asked by a professor whose class I took, why I had left clinical practice to study health policy. I replied naively, ‘I migrated from clinical practice because I don’t like the idea of working in a place where I can make one mistake and kill a person.’

‘I see,’ he said, ‘so you decided to come over to policy and kill thousands?’ […]

Good communication should never be underestimated at any time, however this is never more important than when communicating with someone in relation to their health. It is impossible to overstate the importance of creating good communication between health professionals and patients in optimising health care […]