Last week marked a “humiliating climbdown” for the Health Secretary. Apparently. “Andrew Lansley is now in open retreat and is being forced to cave in on issues he previously fought to the hilt,” said his Labour nemesis Andy Burnham. And so why does his acquiescence to an amendment demanding he take ultimate responsibility for the […]
Category: Editors at large
Domhnall MacAuley: Floundering in the deep end – reflections on the RCGP conference
The deep end. Floundering, treading water, trying to avoid drowning in the multiple morbidity, clinical complexity, and long, detailed, and difficult consultations in areas of deprivation. At the shallow end, GPs also work hard but can feel the bottom. Graham Watt (Glasgow) described his work with GPs working in the most deprived areas of Glasgow […]
Harriet Vickers: Psychiatry to save the world: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia
Lars von Trier has made no secret of the fact he’s suffered from depression. At the beginning of 1997 he was hospitalised with the condition, saying it left him incapacitated for six months. Whilst the film he wrote during this period, Antichrist, was an explicit nightmare borne from the experience (genital self-mutilation, graphic torture, talking […]
Domhnall MacAuley: The high metal fences at work
There are high metal fences around both my places of work, at the BMJ, there is a lovely commemorative ornamental railing. At our surgery, a security barrier. Two places far apart both geographically and economically. David Taylor-Robinson (Liverpool), highlighted the socioeconomic differences within the UK in his recent talk at the Centre for Excellence in […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Wet October Tuesday morning
Wet Tuesday. October. General practice. Year 28, day 11. Radio news. Car park. Medical bag. Waiting room- half full. Hi all. Open surgery. Password. Mouse. Press. Wait. Headache, blood pressure, fundoscopy, acne, GCSE abdominal pain, MSSU, delayed letter, hospital letter, hypertension, change prescription, foot injury, chest infection, recent hospital in ICU, flu vac, emergency contraception, […]
David Payne: Best death scenes in literature
Our 19th century ancestors were no strangers to death. So why were they so terrible at writing about it? At a Cheltenham Literary Festival panel discussion on death scenes in literature, science broadcaster Vivienne Parry confessed to “being ready to shoot “ the ailing child heroine Little Nell long before Dickens killed her off in The […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Medicine, marriage, and a bright future
There were enough doctors to run a medium sized hospital. Doctors in training in almost every specialty- I could identify those in paediatrics, obstetrics, cancer care, and ophthalmology, but most were from general practice. There was an overall air of understated professional competence and they were comfortable in each other’s company; as might have been […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Doctors in this week’s sports headlines
Caught in a spat between a multi million pound footballer and a multi billion pound football club. Bet they didn’t warn him about that in medical school. Owen Hargreaves said he felt like a “guinea pig” while his injury was treated at Manchester United – and the club doctor, Steve McNally, was named in the media. We don’t […]
David Payne: Happy 13th birthday, (scary) Google
In Washington DC last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt defended the company’s business practices when he appeared before a Senate antitrust panel. Down the road at Georgetown University the following day, his colleague Darcy Dapra was doing a similar thing to an audience of scholarly publishers. Mr Schmidt’s appearance was to reject claims that Google, […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Nurses’ and doctors’ caring skills
Too many new nurses are “simply not up to the mark” said Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nurses, quoted on the front page of the Times 22.9.11. They “arrive in hospital incapable of caring for patients because they have spent too much time in the classroom and not enough on the […]