Salil Patel

Writing

Essays, commentary, and conversations, most recent first.

  1. Motel CaliforniaEssay · August 2026On Rex Motel, family, and a childhood between London and Ventura.
  2. What CreatesEssay · August 2026On ants, and the conditions under which a group becomes cleverer than the people in it.
  3. What CarriesEssay · February 2026Creativity is recombination under pressure. The myth of genius exists to let the rest of us off the hook.
  4. What HoldsEssay · December 2025Newton did his best work in a plague year, in the ruins of an old order. The scientific method is what remained when custom fell away.
  5. Sound of MindThe Economist · October 2024Sound patterns the human ear cannot detect. Psychiatry is starting to listen.
  6. On Presidents and PoetryEssay · 2022RFK and Aeschylus, JFK and Frost, Biden and Heaney. Tragedy is what binds presidents to poets.
  7. Parkinson’s disease: no cure yet, but treatments have come a long wayThe Conversation · June 2021Two hundred years of treating Parkinson's, from bloodletting and vibration chairs to deep brain stimulation.
  8. Of That Colossal WreckAllegory Ridge · September 2020Stepping off the boat, holding my breath when I shouldn't, into an environment as alien as the far reaches of the solar system.
  9. Could our eyes reveal early signs of Parkinson’s disease?The Independent · September 2020Eye movements and retinal thinning as early markers of Parkinson's disease.
  10. Certainty in UncertaintyThe Oxford Review of Books · May 2020In politics, changing your mind is a sin. In science, it is the method.
  11. Covid-19: why putting a name to it mattersThe BMJ · March 2020During an epidemic you cannot always control the virus. You can control the rhetoric. Quicker to name, slower to sensationalise.
  12. Should the NHS be independent like the judiciary?Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · January 2020Healthcare decisions outlast electoral cycles. Perhaps the institution should be insulated from them.
  13. Doctors Dealing with DeathRNZ Nights · May 2019A radio conversation on doctors and death, following the BMJ piece.
  14. The paradox of doctors dealing with deathThe BMJ · March 2019The public need to be better informed about death. So do doctors.
  15. In the age of xenophobia, these doctors gave us reason for hopeThe Independent · October 2018Thirty doctors, two unborn patients, and why the ancient Greeks had no word for creativity.
  16. Reason knows nothing: how biases infect medicineJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine · June 2018How cognitive biases infect clinical decisions.
  17. Can the NHS learn from the rise and fall of ancient empires?Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · October 2017What the rise and fall of empires might teach the National Health Service.
  18. The Age of Extinguished ReasonThe Isis · July 2017From Prometheus to Thomas Paine: what happens when reason goes out of fashion.
  19. Banning abortion by stealth is plain and simple misogynyCherwell · June 2017Texas defunded reproductive healthcare and maternal mortality doubled. That is not a coincidence.
  20. Forgetting Aleppo: fatalism has no place in this tragedyThe BMJ · February 2017The health workers of Aleppo stayed. Fatalism has no place in this tragedy.
  21. When Breath Becomes AirThe BMJ · February 2016Paul Kalanithi's account of his own dying. Inspiring because he refuses to be sentimental about it.
  22. Is the role of instinct important in medicine?Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · December 2014On the place of instinct in clinical judgement.