Doctors have a long and proud history of involvement in the arts. There are classic tomes published by doctors – The House of God (Shem), Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle), The Story of San Michele (Munthe), The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov). The profession has also produced a number of playwrights (Chekov), and poets (Keats). This […]
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 […]
There is an often quoted medical witticism, that originated in 1940’s Maryland: ‘When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don’t expect to see a zebra’ Suffice to say, there aren’t many zebras in Maryland… In the rough and tumble of acute medical admissions, there are an increasing number of horses in the herd to contend […]
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 […]
I am conflicted… and it is down to a couple of papers in this May’s PMJ that look at the development of a new tool for assessing the performance of trainees in a key medical task. Most nights – or at least 2 a week – I spend a portion of my evening logging […]
The National Health Service is more than a health service, is is perhaps one of the biggest postgraduate universities in the world. Within the corridors, operating theatres, and wards of the hospitals in the UK, healthcare professionals are learning. They are taught by example every day, and increasingly are allocated time out of the service […]
Clinical curiosity is a key trait amongst learners, and in clinical practice, curiosity is necessary to reach a diagnosis of even the most simple nature, but particularly so to diagnose cases that do not readily fit the heuristics that one brings to bear in everyday clinical work. However, clinical curiosity can be supressed by the […]
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 […]
Medicine is an ever changing discipline. One field that continues to change the face of clinical practice, and throw up new challenges is that of radiology. The body no longer hides it’s secrets beneath skin that requires a surgeon’s skills to open up and explore, but can be encouraged to give them up through […]
Patient centred, patient focused, patient oriented, co-design, co-production, co-creation, and so on… The medical world is abuzz with the desire to make patients the central focus of all of our efforts. It is almost so blindingly obvious that patients should be at the centre of everything that we do that very often clinicians feel somewhat […]