{"id":40967,"date":"2017-12-29T10:02:04","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T09:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=40967"},"modified":"2018-01-04T17:15:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T16:15:58","slug":"annabel-ferriman-doctors-as-polymaths-12-months-of-bmj-confidential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2017\/12\/29\/annabel-ferriman-doctors-as-polymaths-12-months-of-bmj-confidential\/","title":{"rendered":"Annabel Ferriman: Doctors as polymaths\u201412 months of BMJ Confidential"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The sheer breadth of doctors\u2019 talents and abilities shone out from the pages of BMJ Confidential this year. We had doctors who were poets, masterchefs, novelists, comedians, actors and singers.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the themes this year has been doctors \u201ccoming out.\u201d Comedian and former junior doctor Adam Kay<\/a> said that his mother cried when he \u201ccame out\u201d as gay, and also when he left medicine, while sleep expert Michael Farquhar says in his column, being published in January, that he wished he realised earlier that \u201cthat coming out wouldn\u2019t end my world, it would start it over again.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Joanna Poulton<\/a>, professor of mitochondrial genetics at Oxford, \u201ccame out\u201d in her BMJ Confidential column\u2013 not as gay but as suffering from ADHD, which she said has interfered with grant applications and papers. She was pleased to discover it responded well to medication.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would they be doing, if not in their present jobs: rescuing stray kittens, cycling in the Tour de France, playing in a band. One doctor said that from watching reality police programmes, he thought there was a gap in the market for a \u201creasonably intelligent, methodical criminal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Many doctors showed \u201crat-like cunning\u201d in practising medicine and ensuring patient safety. John Launer<\/a>, a doctor and writer, revealed that when he was a junior, he and his colleagues hid some of their patients on side wards to save them from being treated by a particularly irrational consultant.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most distinguished doctors we interviewed was Ray Dolan<\/a>, professor of neuropsychiatry at University College London, who this year shared the one million euro Brain Prize, awarded annually by the Lundbeck Foundation for outstanding contributions to neuroscience. He likes being an academic because it helps him avoid \u201chaving to answer to unimaginative managerial types, who seem to flourish in today\u2019s NHS.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

If he were given \u00a31m, Dolan would use it to expose \u201cfake news and outright propaganda in relation to health funding, particularly mental health funding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Different ways of keeping fit for our doctors include: taking a brisk walk to the pub; and \u201cthinking about exercise, and then lying down until the thought passed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Favourite books were <\/span>Being Mortal<\/span><\/i> by Atul Gawande, <\/span>Do No Harm<\/span><\/i> by Henry Marsh, and <\/span>Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/span><\/i> by Daniel Kahneman. Public health doctor Mary Black<\/a> was annoyed that interviewees always seemed to choose male writers, so made a special point of nominating <\/span>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks<\/span><\/i> by science writer Rebecca Skloot.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do people wear to work? Comedian Adam Kay said:\u201cBoxer shorts in summer, and a dressing gown in winter\u2014but it is worth pointing out that I work at home.\u201d And when we asked John Launer, he said: \u201cClothes, except in dreams.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Several doctors confessed to suffering from \u201cimposter syndrome,\u201d the feeling that they did not deserve to be in their current position\u2014but this seemed to get better as people got older.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three themes recurred when we asked about what doctors wanted for the NHS: parity of esteem between mental and physical healthcare, end of the purchaser\/provider split, and an end to creeping privatisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poet and professor of psychiatry Femi Oyebode<\/a> was one of the most outspoken interviewees on the problems in the NHS. When asked for his pet hate, he said: \u201cJeremy Hunt, for taking pride in defeating junior doctors and demoralising young doctors. And for the not so surreptitious chronic underfunding of the NHS, which is likely to lead to the collapse of the greatest social invention of the 20<\/span>th<\/span> century.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Annabel Ferriman<\/strong>, associate editor, The BMJ<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sheer breadth of doctors\u2019 talents and abilities shone out from the pages of BMJ Confidential this year. We had doctors who were poets, masterchefs, novelists, comedians, actors and singers. One of the themes this year has been doctors \u201ccoming out.\u201d Comedian and former junior doctor Adam Kay said that his mother cried when he […]<\/p>\n

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