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2012 the year in review: The Better Safe Than Sorry award

There’s frequent handwringing in the medical press about the rise of defensive medicine, but the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games took caution to a whole new level when it insisted that all medically qualified volunteers at the Olympics, including GPs, surgeons and dentists, sat through a training session in how to prescribe – wait for it – paracetamol. All a bit Twenty Twelve, perhaps, and dumbstruck delegates described the training session as ‘surreal’. But LOCOG was unrepentant. ‘We train all our volunteers, whether they are aware of the procedures or not,’ a spokesperson said. Safety first.