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EDITOR’S CHOICE

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

When I visited the Mayo Clinic I was astonished to find patients with backache and sciatica in a "neurology" bed—surely they belonged in a "neurosurgery" bed? Not so, not since the Mayo brothers and the early pioneers of the Clinic in the early 20th century declared that physicians and surgeons should look after potential surgical patients together. How very sensible. I have never worked in a centre where this has been the policy. Instead, surgeons are tied up deciding that vast numbers of patients will never need an operation, and physicians are denied the opportunity to sort out why those patients are presenting to medical attention before they are discharged home. So, read the editorial Breaking down the silos by a neurosurgeon and neurologist from the Mayo Clinic (page 206).

Another much more recent sensible development has been allowing—legally—patients in the persistent vegetative state to die by withdrawing artificial nutrition . . . [Full text of this article]

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