Obituaries: the future.(results of a reader survey indicate BMJ obituaries are popular)(Editorial)

Obituaries are one of the most popular sections of the BMJ. The many letters that we received in response to our last editorial on obituaries and the high response rate to our questionnaire on the subject confirmed their popularity.(1)(2) The letters and the answers to the questionnaire have helped us consider how to respond to the central problem: how to publish rapidly in a limited number of pages an ever increasing number of obituaries, preserving their accuracy and usefulness and increasing their readability. We think that we can achieve this through evolution rather than revolution.

Many diverse opinions were expressed by our 110 correspondents and 646 respondents to our survey sent to 1070 doctors, but some things emerged very clearly: most readers want obituaries kept, almost all were keen that we keep space for "ordinary" …