Iona Heath is a retired inner city general practitioner (1975-2010) and past President of the UK Royal College of General Practitioners (2009-2012). She has written regularly for the British Medical Journal and has contributed essays to many other medical journals across the world. She has been particularly interested to explore the nature of general practice, the importance of medical generalism, issues of justice and liberty in relation to health care, the corrosive influence of the medical industrial complex and the commercialization of medicine, and the challenges posed by disease-mongering, the care of the dying, and violence within families.