Months of pain makes it chronic. Anything else is considered acute. That’s about the extent of the definition given in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). Trying to pinpoint a definition brings up chronic intractable pain (R52.1), other chronic pain (R52.2), and persistent somatoform pain disorder (F45.4). And this doesn’t include […]
Some people are born into the world to enrich it. To give more than they could ever take. To bring to others a rare glimpse into a future we could all help achieve if we had the wit, resolve, humility, compassion, and the love, which Rosamund brought to everything she did and everyone she touched. Such […]
“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 […]
Want to be a better physician or nurse leader? Enhance patient safety? Effectively lead teams? One of the current consultant prescriptions is the recommendation that leaders spend more time listening than talking. Whether in the larger management literature or in the articles and books that specifically target healthcare, listening is portrayed as a key to […]
The purpose of drug regulatory institutions should be to safeguard the best interests of the patient and to drive patient centred healthcare worldwide. Consequently, improving public awareness and providing information and education on the subjects that matter to patients must be the foundation of strong regulatory regimes, so that they’re on track to keep treatments that work available […]
Who gets to define value in health systems? The notion that it should be the people who use their services, rather than those who provide them, is gaining momentum. At a meeting in Paris this week, convened by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), revolutionary zeal was in the air as speakers urged […]
I attended the recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) policy forum on the Future of Health, “People at the Centre,” with mixed feelings. [1] On the one hand, the conference had an exciting theme and would give me the opportunity to hear about some new ideas and international developments, as well as to catch […]
My illness presented itself suddenly in the middle of a summer night when tinnitus woke me up like an unwelcome visitor. I waited a few minutes for it to go away, but it had come to stay forever. It was coming from my left ear, sounding like a high pitched metallic/whistling noise, with some low […]
Like many people who spout rhetoric about the NHS, I am guilty of indulging in the blame game. Some professionals and policy makers “blame” patients for “inappropriate attendance” at A&E and we have millions spent on campaigns to urge us to “choose wisely” when thinking about heading that way (assuming that we do not make […]
What do we, patients, really want when we phone up to book that appointment? What do we really need? Why do we feel like the only answer is to take a half day off work to go and see the doctor? Is it that we are genuinely ill, have developed symptoms of something inexplicable, feel […]