Collusion, illusion, or delusion?

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 […]

Read More…

What’s important to you?

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 […]

Read More…

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, […]

Read More…

Exercise in older adults – time for a New Year’s Resolution?

Exercise is good for you – but then we sort of know that already – The Earl of Derby had it right back in 1873 pointing out that ‘Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.’   Take a look at this brilliant […]

Read More…

Is that a smartphone in your pocket?

Smartphones are almost ubiquitous on the wards nowadays.  In a departmental meeting the other day a question popped up about the commonest reason for admission to hospital acute medical services. Out came my smartphone, and after a search, and a tweet – almost instantly (and quickly enough to furnish an answer by the end of […]

Read More…