When we think of healthcare, I expect the majority of us would think of broken arms, twisted ankles, or the dreaded winter flu that threatens our physical health. Of course, this is a fair enough assumption as hospitals and GPs primarily exist to treat physical ailments that might befall us, and the primary job of […]
In a now much-shared clip from a recent Daily Politics broadcast, two school girls were seen to take the veteran reporter Andrew Neil to task about the sugar tax budget announcement, whilst he fought for the public right to ‘break the rules’. The girls eloquently fielded success statistics regarding the implementation of seat belts in […]
Read More… from Medical advice, unsweetened — is medical paternalism a problem?
Murmurs, crackles, oedema, thrills, shifting dullness, liver flap, spoon nails – the list of clinical signs goes on and on, yet learning them is not as easy as memorising the terms. Now that I am in my clinical training I have finally experienced the joy of seeing these signs for the first time, and also […]
‘Right, in a few seconds you will fall into a peaceful sleep…’ Words that I heard many times in the few days that I gained work experience in anaesthetics. The question of what specialty I would like to go into is not something that I have ever considered seriously (mainly given that it is such […]
Over my career I have spent many thousands of hours in A&E departments working on shift to care for sick or hurt children. I, along with the medical team, do my best to care for the physical wellbeing of each and every patient that comes through the door. I find it hard to believe, therefore, […]
Read More… from We need to take stock of vending machines in A&E departments
The first doctors’ strikes for 42 years have resulted from the intransigence of the Department of Health (DH) led by Jeremy Hunt in insisting that Saturday is treated as a normal working day thus reducing overtime payments and doctors’ pay. Opposite my new flat they are constructing a new building and work from 8am-6pm Monday […]
Read More… from When did Saturday become a normal working day?
Is there a doctor on board? Before I became a medical student it was these words I imagined would one day summon me to perform some heroic life-saving act. I thought it would be me who would dash to the front of a plane, and undertake a daring procedure, never before tried outside the confines […]
Could somebody please just tell me what’s going on? As we speak, in the hallowed halls of medical schools up and down the country, almost every scrap of traditional didactic delivery is being ‘innovated’ out of the curriculum and medical education is dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century. Teaching is being stripped down […]
Read More… from Virtual medical school? I’d rather have some real teaching
Ah, that feeling of headaches, high temperature, a rapid heart-rate and disorientation. All signs telling us that it’s probably time to pop down to the doctor and grab some antibiotics to help cure us of whatever infection may have got through our immune defences. But, what if we couldn’t do this? What if upon contracting […]
Why we need to start talking about doubt in medical school. In recent weeks, in the aftermath of Jeremy Hunt’s decision to force through new contracts on junior doctors, an oft hidden subsection of medics has come to the fore, namely ‘the doubters’. Hidden behind the cries of the devoted, who would move all the […]