BJGP Life – The home of general practice and family medicine

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The weight of ordinary things

25 May 2026

What we lose when we lose the thinking space of the consultation is not administrative efficiency. It is a form of clinical knowledge that cannot be generated any other way: knowledge that emerges when a clinician holds the whole patient in mind and asks questions the system was not designed to.

My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden

'My Fourth time, We Drowned,' challenges us to be human. As doctors we have the unique opportunity to address the injustices described in the book at an individual level.

23 May 2026

Personal Protective Equipment (A Poem)

The clinell wipes held in emerald green... They’re for my body... But what the hell Is there for my soul? A poem.

22 May 2026

The gatekeepers and the wizards revisited (Part 4): The Wizard-Psychologist

The Wise Wizard-Psychologist rose to his feet. “Meeting performance targets, rather than looking after the poorly People, in Systems Thinking terms, is not “value work.”..."

21 May 2026

Opinion and Clinical

AiT·Arts·Opinion·Stories

Personal Protective Equipment (A Poem)

The clinell wipes held in emerald green... They’re for my body... But what the hell Is there for my soul? A poem.

22 May 2026

Opinion·Stories

The gatekeepers and the wizards revisited (Part 4): The Wizard-Psychologist

The Wise Wizard-Psychologist rose to his feet. “Meeting performance targets, rather than looking after the poorly People, in Systems Thinking terms, is not “value work.”..."

21 May 2026

Opinion·Undergraduate

Community-focussed curricula and the ScotGEM programme: Personal reflections on a research visit

Medical students’ interest in GP is declining. ScotGEM, and other community-orientated tracks, aim to buck this trend.

20 May 2026

Clinical·Podcast·Videos

Episode 231: ‘They knew me’: Relationships, continuity and dementia care

In this episode, we talk to Dr Charlotte Morris about dementia care in socioeconomically deprived populations.

19 May 2026

Opinion

Hesitation or humility? The consultation is already doing the theory

In many consultations, even under the usual time pressure, something quieter happens... You let a few possibilities breathe. You ask one more question, check one more assumption, and resist the urge to quieten the story too quickly.

18 May 2026

Arts·Opinion·Random

Sex, violence and moral ambiguity in “Once Upon a Time in the West”

Sergio Leone’s final and arguably greatest Western, “Once Upon a Time in the West” is famous for its long, drawn-out gun fights, which open and close the movie like two gruesome bookends. It is a magnificent movie, but more magnificent for not

16 May 2026

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Follow the microbes: A new perspective on health inequalities

Perhaps a new take on the UK’s health inequality gap could be a focus on dysbiosis. We could seek to understand how the microbiome signatures of those living in deprivation compare to those living in affluence, and how that might link to

15 May 2026

Opinion·Stories

The gatekeepers and the wizards revisited (Part 3): Evidence-based wizarding

It was time for a Wise Gatekeeper from the Centre for Evidence-based Wizarding to speak to the Assembly.

14 May 2026

1

International·Opinion

There’s no such thing as minor illness

The health system depends for its effectiveness on minor illness. We’ve built a system where we limit capacity to only include those with serious illnesses, or those with something dramatic and exciting.

13 May 2026

Book Reviews

Book review·Opinion

My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden

'My Fourth time, We Drowned,' challenges us to be human. As doctors we have the unique opportunity to address the injustices described in the book at an individual level.

5 mins read

Book review

Book review: The Golden Rule: Lessons in Living from a Doctor of Ageing

The Golden Rule is a 'lesson in living from a doctor of ageing' and it is full of hidden gems and pearls of wisdom from Lucy Pollock's ability to acutely observe beyond what is and isn’t being said. It exudes warmth and intelligence.

4 mins read

Book review

Book review: Gloria Don’t Speak

"This book gives Gloria a voice. It needs to be read widely by anyone involved in the care of people with learning disability or neurodiversity." - Peter Lindsay reviews Gloria Don't Speak by Lucy Apps

3 mins read

Book review

Understanding health, illness and society: a patient centred approach to healthcare by Alexis Paton

I have found another slim sociology text that takes the fight for health justice to audiences whose attention and focus is under siege. Alexis Paton channels her talents as a bioethicist, journalist, and a social scientist, reconnecting this topic with a sense of righteous outrage.

3 mins read

Book review

Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer

Ann Packer’s novel vividly depicts the complex, uncertain world of terminal care at home.

1 min read

Arts·Book review

The waiting room: poetry and publishings from over a decade in the NHS, by Giles Dawnay

This is a self published collection of writings by Giles Dawnay that comprises some haunting poetry and published writings in (among others) The Guardian, The BMJ and the BJGP, on themes that we ignore at our collective peril.

2 mins read

1

Book review·International

Wonderful and Broken: The Complex Reality Of Primary Care In the United States by Troyen A. Brennan

Troyen Brennan explores the complexities of the United States’ (US's) primary care with its multiple systems of funding and its absence of universal health care cover and finds that primary care is wonderful but broken...

3 mins read

Arts·Book review

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

In many respects, Kelson embodies the idealised GP of cultural consciousness: an easy-to-talk-to, principled eccentric... Set against the film’s graphic, meandering violence, Kelson’s permanence echoes reassuring familiarity.

1 min read

Book review·Opinion

Icarus Plummeting

Zigmond mercilessly describes the ways in which our healthcare systems have made us less able to listen to the patient’s experience, less able to see their experience in the context of their life, their family and their social circumstances.

2 mins read

Book review

Book review: How Animals Heal Us

"How Animals Heal Us is a deeply heartfelt work from an author with lived experience of both devastating mental ill health and the restorative power of animal friendship. It contains uplifting and joyful anecdotes of animal companionship and ministration. It is also, at times, a

2 mins read

International

International·Opinion

There’s no such thing as minor illness

The health system depends for its effectiveness on minor illness. We’ve built a system where we limit capacity to only include those with serious illnesses, or those with something dramatic and exciting.

3 mins read

International

Supporting general practice in Myanmar throughout 5 years of conflict

Jim Brockbank reports on the ongoing conflict in Myanmar from a healthcare perspective, with particular attention to the RCGP Quality Improvement project, the importance of telemedicine, and essential health partnerships. An essential read.

5 mins read

International·Opinion

Family physicians as air traffic controllers in a healthcare system

When air traffic controllers are overwhelmed or understaffed, flights are grounded, airspace becomes congested, and risks increase. When family physicians are undervalued, under-resourced, or excluded from system planning, the entire healthcare system suffers.

4 mins read

1

Clinical·International·Opinion

Stop coaching breathing: treat hyperventilation by talking them back to normal ventilation

The uncomfortable truth is that the more we try to teach breathing, the more the patient often inhales. What they need is not breathing coaching. What they need is conversation.

5 mins read

International·Opinion

Not alone, but unseen: hypothermia in an ageing home

Accidental hypothermia is rarely dramatic. It does not announce itself with urgency or spectacle. Instead, it accumulates quietly through the night, until it finally becomes visible in the early hours, when someone realises that something is wrong.

3 mins read

Long Read

Ambivalent care: when patients feel unheard and unsupported

BJGP Long Read·Opinion

As a clinician, do you find it challenging to treat patients with symptoms that are difficult to understand, explain or manage?

11 mins read

Medical societies in the 19th Century: How they influenced general practice

BJGP Long Read·Stories

Many of these societies may be historical relics, but their contribution to the development of general practice in the nineteenth century should not be forgotten.

7 mins read

Undervalued and unsustainable: The economic reality of GP minor surgery services

BJGP Long Read·Opinion

When the price of a portion of fish and chips has tripled in 20 years but the tariff for a joint injection remains static, something has gone seriously wrong with how we value general practice.

5 mins read

23

We need to talk about dying

BJGP Long Read

"Taking dying and death out of the solely medical domain, becoming joint partners in caring for the dying patient in the broadest sense, facilitates personalised and holistic care, and creates opportunity for a more relational and compassionate interaction ..."

15 mins read

On becoming: Empathy at the deep end

BJGP Long Read·Opinion

Empathy is not a luxury. It is the ground on which healing relationships are built — and the ground on which we remain whole.

3 mins read

1

Trainees and students

Personal Protective Equipment (A Poem)

AiT·Arts·Opinion·Stories

The clinell wipes held in emerald green... They’re for my body... But what the hell Is there for my soul? A poem.

1 min read

Community-focussed curricula and the ScotGEM programme: Personal reflections on a research visit

Opinion·Undergraduate

Medical students’ interest in GP is declining. ScotGEM, and other community-orientated tracks, aim to buck this trend.

4 mins read

Who am I when I put the stethoscope on?

Opinion·Undergraduate

We are not passive witnesses in consultations, we are active partners. What happens in a consultation is not fixed but co-created, and I am more responsible for that than I had realised.

2 mins read

A note on educators’ notes: why GP training programmes in the UK needs clearer, fairer assessment governance

AiT·BJGP Long Read·Opinion

GP training programmes must balance two imperatives: protecting patients and supporting the development of hardworking, reflective clinicians. To achieve this, the establishment relies heavily on narrative assessment tools...

3 mins read

Enhancing qFIT bowel screening uptake in deprived areas

BJGP Long Read·Opinion·Undergraduate

This is what Andrea Williamson and colleagues have termed missingness: The systematic absence of certain groups from health data, services, and outcomes. Those who do not return their kits are not a random group — they are often the very patients carrying the highest burden

4 mins read

BJGP Interviews

BJGP Interviews Podcast

BJGP TV | Research

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33

BJGP conference highlights, 2026

Visualised podcast – BJGP Top 10

Urine testing for cervical screening

Trust in health professionals

BJGP Top 10 research 2025

Professor Martin Marshall at the BJGP Research Conference

1

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Trainees and students

BJGP Interviews

BJGP Interviews Podcast

BJGP TV | Research

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BJGP News and Editorial Comment