I recently read a BBC article that provided an alternative to the regular press rhetoric on NHS performance this winter; namely, that the fact the NHS has been able to perform as well as it has this winter is a miracle in the face of growing pressures and budgetary cuts. The article stressed that one reason […]
On Tuesday of this week I hosted a dinner at the Royal College of Psychiatrists for a group of medical students who are part of our “Pathfinders”—a scheme to give interested students some support and contacts to get them started in a career in psychiatry and especially psychiatry research. Also attending were other psychiatrists interested […]
“Can I ask you a question?” “Of course,” I replied, refocusing my attention across the hospital bed to answer my patient’s inquisitive, middle aged son. “Are you a real Doctor? Like, can you prescribe drugs and stuff?” This question wasn’t asked because I look particularly young. I’m 29, and have for too long neglected my […]
“Patient remains medically fit for discharge. Plan: Awaiting social.” On countless times during my foundation year 1 I wrote words to that effect in patients’ notes during ward rounds. It is an all too familiar tale. An elderly person is admitted to hospital with an acute illness, which is treated, but the patient is judged […]
In an address to oysters, the Walrus in Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” proclaims: The time has come, [the Walrus said], To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax — Of cabbages—and kings— And why the sea is boiling hot— And whether pigs have wings. I’m not sure where the Walrus was […]
What have we done? We have over-intellectualised health. We—the youthful, affluent, busy, well educated elite—run the NHS as we would want for ourselves. We think of how we would choose to get our hernia “fixed” by the best possible surgeon at a time of convenience before going back to work. As an orthopaedic surgeon, I […]
Last year the King’s Fund ran an essay competition for contributions to its series “the NHS if,” exploring hypothetical futures for the health service. Here, we publish the runner-up entry. Read the winning entry here […]
Since its inception, nearly every member of the Republican Party has run vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Ashish Jha looks at what might happen next. […]
Doctors have to make difficult clinical judgements about their patients on a daily basis and are trained to do so. This decision making develops with experience and the profession balances risk versus benefit on a case by case basis. Decision making, however, has changed rapidly over the last year with the added pressures brought on by the […]
One explanation that has been offered for the UK’s self-destructive decision to leave the European Union is that there are now few people left alive who can remember the ruined Europe after the Second World War. Last year saw the 60th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, but it seems that the great smogs and […]