Category: World health

Richard Smith: “I’m the minister of health in a poor country”

Richard Smith of UnitedHealth and Adjunct Professor at IGHI, writes for the BMJ about our upcoming NCD event at the Royal Society on 4th October.  

I’m the minister of health in a poor country. Until last year I was a urologist. I was the president’s urologist and took out his prostate. To be honest, I don’t think it needed to come out, but he insisted. You don’t resist the president. He was delighted with the result and rewarded me by making me minister of health.

It doesn’t feel like a reward. Everybody wants something from me, but I’m very low in the hierarchy.