Sir, Melanie Reid’s spirited Spinal column has proved to be a gripping, inspiring feature in the Saturday Times during the past 18 months. This vivid memoir of her readjustment to life, after an appalling riding accident that damaged her spinal cord, is a telling and lucid analysis of the experience of someone so afflicted. Catalysing an editorial in a national newspaper on urinary catheters is an extraordinary achievement (“A medical priority”, leading article, Sept 10). The full significance will be appreciated only by a small group of affected persons.
You are right to point to a deficiency in our nation’s clinical research application to urinary catheterisation. There are too many causes of human suffering that do not attract scientific attention because they are