• health care quality, access, and evaluation
• drug-related side effects and adverse reactions

The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) was obligatory reading; as a final year medical student, it was a four-page freebie in simple black font that arrived in the post and brought clarity to what was a confusing panoply of therapeutic choices. As a junior doctor, I remember it as the first usable example of evidence-based medicine and a way of understanding options.

The bulletin was the brainchild of Andrew Herxheimer (Editor 1962-1992) and Joe Collier (Editor 1992-2004) and I became aware of it, thanks to Joe, who taught me as a medical student at St George’s Hospital Medical School and who I later worked with as his junior lecturer. It was a time (the 1980s) when treatment options were many and the notion of restricting choices …