During my F2 year I undertook a four month psychiatry placement, based in a mother and baby unit. Before starting, psychiatry was definitely not in my top 5 list of coveted jobs. I initially saw it as just having to “get through” the four months. Little did I know that this specialised combination of psychiatry, obstetrics, and […]
Mary Higgins: Breaking bad news in maternity care
There’s one thing I really hate about my job, and that’s a particular phone call. A midwife I respect will ring and ask can I come down straight away. A woman has presented because her baby hasn’t moved in a couple of hours, and the midwife can’t hear a heartbeat. As I enter the room, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Phlegmatic
The second of Galen’s four fluid humours of the body, φλέγμα, was associated, when in supposed excess, with a phlegmatic temperament, “not easily excited to feeling or action; stolidly calm, self-possessed, imperturbable; sluggish, apathetic, lacking enthusiasm” (OED). Although this sounds dull, the ultimate origin of the word is the IndoEuropean root BHEL, associated with verbs […]
Richard Smith: Finding meaning in life through neurosurgery
Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon, wanted badly to understand life and its meaning, and he knew that to do so he would need to understand death. So when in his 30s he developed a cancer that he knew would kill him, he thought (and subsequently wrote): “Shouldn’t terminal illness, then, be the perfect gift to that […]
Jeph Mathias: The human face of inequality
Long ago an MSF (Doctors Without Borders) poster transfixed one junior doctor. Me. It was black and white. Two figures, photographed from behind, dominate the foreground: a poor black child, desperately malnourished and in need (yet another African war?), being led by a white man (a doctor maybe?) to a makeshift clinic that is but […]
Canada’s new government: Climate change, “regulatory capture,” and “cathedral thinking”
It’s a year this month since Justin Trudeau was elected as Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister, ending a decade of conservative rule under Stephen Harper. By most accounts he has set a progressive and inclusive agenda at home, while internationally he has eschewed populist sentiments (seen in many countries)—welcoming instead 25 000 Syrian refugees, re-engaging with […]
Humans of the NHS: Telling the stories of frontline NHS staff
“To save a life or to make it better for someone else is why I chose to do this job. The thanklessness of it, however, has never dissuaded me from doing what I do everyday.” – Emergency Medicine Consultant “The patient that sticks in my mind is a young guy who had crashed his car. […]
Chris Packham: The trouble with public health
People think public health is all (lecturing the masses on) sex, drugs, and alcohol. Even fellow clinicians tend to forget about defined roles such as the public health specialist. These individuals focus on using public health approaches to ensure cost-effective and appropriate planning, commissioning, and provision of NHS services. They can and do help the NHS and […]
“Our language is funny—a ‘fat chance’ and a ‘slim chance’ are the same thing”: Helping artificial intelligence understand patients
Google is in hot water. First of all, the artificial intelligence (AI) focused branch of the organization, Google DeepMind, recently held a public meeting on the hot topic of accessing NHS patient information. Google already has access to 1.6 million patient records, and plans to build an electronic portal that allows patients and doctors to […]
Mark Mikhail: The unsung hero of the Paralympic games
As the dust settles and we look back on an incredible Olympics followed by an even more successful Paralympics it is impossible to not be filled with admiration. We in the UK have shown that with investment, time, and masses of effort comes ascendancy and victory. 147 medals won at the 2016 Paralympic Games, 64 […]