In June 2010 the medical journalist Nigel Hawkes, who has died from a heart attack at the age of 78, ran into one of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s advisers whom he knew well and whom he greeted warmly since they were old friends. “You’re a troublemaker,” she hissed, “always writing those ghastly articles in The BMJ .” And she turned away. This story, recounted in one of Hawkes’s columns, demonstrates one of his great strengths as a journalist. He was well known for being politically right of centre in his private life, but he never allowed party preferences, personal prejudice, or pettiness to cloud his judgment when it came to writing. He was also unique in being able to take an impenetrable statistical conundrum and not only explain it to you clearly but delight you with his explanation. He made statistics fun and sweetened even the most labyrinthine complexities of NHS organisation. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ , described him thus: “He was such a pillar of strength and wisdom and wit. We relied …

中文翻译：

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Nigel Hawkes：医学记者和 Straight Statistics 主任

2010 年 6 月，因心脏病发作去世，享年 78 岁的医学记者奈杰尔·霍克斯（Nigel Hawkes）遇到了卫生部长安德鲁·兰斯利（Andrew Lansley）的一位顾问，他很熟悉，自从他们是老朋友以来，他就热情地打招呼。“你是个麻烦制造者，”她嘶嘶地说，“总是在 BMJ 上写那些可怕的文章。” 而她转身就走。这个故事在霍克斯的一个专栏中讲述，展示了他作为记者的一大优势。众所周知，他在私人生活中以政治权利为中心，但在写作时，他从不允许政党偏好、个人偏见或小气影响他的判断。他的独特之处还在于，他能够解决一个难以理解的统计难题，不仅向您解释清楚，而且让您对他的解释感到满意。他使统计变得有趣，甚至使 NHS 组织中最复杂的复杂事物也变得有趣起来。The BMJ 主编菲奥娜·戈德利 (Fiona Godlee) 这样描述他：“他是力量、智慧和智慧的支柱。我们依靠……