Hi there, my name is Toby Hillman, welcome to the PMJ blog.
I’m a Respiratory Physician with a range of interests, and have blogged a bit in the past on a range of issues which interest me, and which I have encountered during my working life as a respiratory trainee in London.
Recently I was asked to join the team at PMJ and blog on current issues, and articles in the journal.
I guess an intro to the journal might be a good place to start whilst I get to know the ropes.
The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine was formed after the First World War through the merger of the Postgraduate Medical Association and the Fellowship of Medicine. Under the initial presidency of Sir William Osler it pioneered postgraduate medical education in all medical specialties, and in 1925 the Fellowship published the first issue of the Postgraduate Medical Journal.
The journal started with some sage words of advice from Sir William Hale-White, and a noble aim:
Practicing medicine is like sailing on a sea of which the soundings and currents vary every few years…. [the newly qualified doctor] must leave his practice occasionally in order to study the changes from his original charts.
This Journal has been founded to give to all an account of what post-graduate work is being done in this country and to enable every one to keep in touch with
it…
Sir Berkeley Moynihan added that:
Learning, both in acquisition and display, is made more attractive by sharing it with others. Discussion and controversy are of the very spirit of scholarship, and comradeship
with those who labour in our own profession makes of us colleagues rather than competitors.
The PMJ has been providing insights into a wonderfully diverse range of subjects, at a level which will enlighten the generalist and stimulate the specialist in any of the medical and surgical specialties (including the most general of specialisms – General Practice) for the past 88 years.
In a happy coincidence, there is a paper on gallstones in the first issue of the PMJ, and one of the recently published online articles rounds this off with an update to a common feature on most postgraduate’s ‘charts’ of biliary disease – the 5Fs
Over the coming months I’ll be aiming to bring you some highlights from the journal and hopefully stimulating some debate, reflection and who knows – possibly making learning more attractive through sharing…
Welcome, and please let me know how you think it’s going through the comments or on twitter (@tobyhillman or @PMJ_BMJ)