Leadership is one of those areas of medical training that is increasing in prevalence, and the number of schemes to ensure that medical leaders are available within the workforce is ever expanding. Some in our profession feel that the ‘leaders’ who are ‘trained’ seem to have few leadership qualities, and even less legitimacy to lead […]
Category: Research in Practice
Hidden in plain sight.
Patients do not come with diagnoses attached to their foreheads. If only they did, huge numbers of hospital visits and admissions could be avoided. To overcome the ever increasing number of potential diagnoses, and the rising tide of illness encountered by our ageing populations, we rely ever more heavily on investigations to guide us […]
Aiming for ‘normal’
Normal ranges are papered to the door of almost every clinical medical student’s lavatory door or fridge, inside the cover of every notebook in the wards – accompanying every result on the EHR – everywhere we are told confidently what normal is. But as this paper studying the laboratory findings of several thousand inpatients at a […]
A disease by any other name…
As a UK medical graduate, working in a London Hospital, it is fair to say that my CV doesn’t contain a huge diversity of workplaces, or populations served. However, it is striking how many different levels of health literacy I encounter within the working week. I have had conversations with patients to correct the […]
Observe, record, tabulate, communicate…
When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I had a teacher that used to be incredibly irritating. Instead of getting away with a lucky guess, or a grasp at a faded memory, we had to be able to ‘show our workings.’ This meant we had to understand where our answers came from, from first […]
Still only human
There is something different about medics. We stand out at university – often forming into a clique that others find difficult to fathom, break into, or tolerate. We strive to be different in many ways; we learn a huge range of facts and figures, along with new languages ( we are taught about everything from […]
The great game…
The PMJ editors met recently, and it was a pleasure to meet up with a range of engaged, eloquent, educated and motivated individuals who all share a passion for Postgraduate Medical Education. It was therefore a little bit of a surprise when a reference to an article on the gamification of medical education proved to […]
Uncomfortable truths.
Simulation is an educational tool that is almost ubiquitous in postgraduate medical training – with diverse examples of implementation – ranging from video recording of consultations with actors, to full immersion scenarios allowing trainees to test their skills and mettle in managing medical emergencies. Indeed, it is so established in some fields that there are […]
What do all those numbers really mean doc?
Go into hospital nowadays, and you will do well to escape without having a blood test of some sort. Very often these are routine tests, which give doctors an overview of the state of play. There might be a few wayward figures here or there – but the doctors will ignore them, or explain […]
Is it all in your head? – not quite…
A paper in the current issue of the Postgraduate Medical Journal tackles a relatively modern concern: chronic postsurgical pain. With the advent of modern anaesthetics, and advances in surgical technique, the potential for surgical intervention to tackle disease exploded. Indeed, there is now a whole industry based on surgically changing the way people look, […]