Fending Off Death 1 by wiebkefesch on DeviantArt Doctors are – in the main – trained to prevent death. Modern medicine has made huge advances, and life expectancies continue to rise. However, there remains only one certainty in this life – that we are all going to die. Patients in the last year of life […]
Tag: communication
All in a day’s work
Becoming a doctor is a long and arduous process. It involves many years of study and more of practice. It is inconceivable that this process leaves those who go through it untouched. This process is called professional socialisation. It confers values, and behaviours on the participants, and these help to mark our profession out from […]
In the land of the blind…
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 […]
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 […]
The beauty of the written word?
Of the essential skills for doctors, writing has to be up there as one of the most important. Doctors writing has been the butt of many jokes ove the years – justifiably, and written prescriptions remain a significant source of error in hospitals up and down the land. The medical notes are another area where […]
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 […]
It’s good to talk…
When I think about my work on the acute medical unit, or my clinics, it is almost mind boggling, the number of interactions I have with other humans – trainees, consultant colleagues, radiographers, radiologists, professionals from other hospitals, biochemists, nurses, physios, therapists, and of course – patients. As Atul Gawande points out in this splendid […]
I took the road less traveled by…
Picture the scene – it’s the wee small hours, say around 0330, when the energy really ebbs on a night shift – it is still pitch black and the gentle lightening in the east is still at least a couple of hours away. You’ve been on the go since you started your shift at 2030 […]
#SoMe and #MedEd – don’t forget to head for the bed
Medical education is a major concern of the Postgraduate Medical Journal. Indeed the origins of the journal are in the need to provide medical graduates with a source of education after graduation that would keep them in touch with the goings on in the major centres of medical progress. A paper in the current issue […]
Professionalism – a team game
Professionalism is one of those peristent themes that run through medical education, and through the comments that are passed whenever there are concerns about clinical performance – be that the perceived clock watching engendered by the EWTD, or the failings at Mid Staffs. Very often the term is used to highlight either a failing, or […]