Giles Dawnay captures the transition of autumn to winter in a poem about cancer.
NHS, please help me to bring the energy not to cry but sing, Courage where there is fear, Hope in the face of all the sugar, fags and beer. Giles Dawnay gets lyrical.
For my attention is elsewhere... Occupied by a mere digital abstraction... The computer between us acting as a physical metaphor... A poem by Callum Leese
Fraser Barratt says a lyrical farewell to hospital medicine as he moves into the community for the final phase of GP training
Sophy Wollaston offers a lyrical journey from doctor to patient and from community to hospital... and back again
The 60th Venice Biennale hidden among the palazzi, churches, and gardens of this beautiful city reflects what is means to be ‘Foreign’. With a global backdrop of multifarious crises concerning movement across countries, nations, territories, and borders, this would seem a pertinent
Can't sleep unless I've had a skinful... his ruddy face flickers. Oscillating fast... between the big man not allowed to cry... and the little boy who chose to survive.
There’s much to be said for novellas – short novels you can read in a couple of evenings, without the commitment needed for a blockbuster. If you’re looking for a great example, I’d recommend The Shooting Party by the Russian dramatist Anton
'It has been a hard week.' Poetry by Terese Tubman
I found this an inspiring, uplifting play about one of my heroes – the Welsh firebrand and father of the NHS, Aneurin “Nye” Bevan – vividly brought to life by another Welsh hero, the actor Michael Sheen.
I’m running late, the daily mantra of a working GP ... I’m running late, not an uncommon sight to see ... I’m running late, stuck behind a tractor on my commute ... I’m running late, the laptop has some updates to compute.
Having... been ‘critiqued’ for writing in too-detached a style, I was intrigued to see how a creative writing approach would change the process of reflection. As part of a self-selected module in ethics education, I took part in a one-day course on
...cognitive bias sustained public faith in the medical profession long before doctors had the tools to truly alter the course of an illness. These forces did not disappear the moment that working therapeutics arrived - meaning we remain enthralled by own salves
Over 4 million people watched the first episode of Mr Bates against the Post Office when it screened on New Year’s Day. And suddenly things started to happen. David Misselbrook reflects on what this might mean for British medicine...
The links between my passion for Bronze Age Greece and working in modern-day practice have never felt tangible, until I recently took time to reflect. Look close enough and you’ll find the threads of history woven throughout medicine and, like all history,
...while the risk of bear attacks or frostbite is substantially lower than in the popular namesake television series, GP trainees face a range of similar challenges as their TV counterparts – isolation, uncertainty, a steep learning curve, and genuine fear.
"Nexus is a powerful, brilliantly acted film [...] about the impact of COVID-19 on young people's mental health, eating-related coping strategies, and the power of social connection. I recommend sharing it with colleagues, patients, and their families."
David Mummery reflects on the professional and political waste land faced by UK general practice and on 'The Waste Land' by TS Eliot
This poem by Kathleen Wenaden is the one she doesn't want to write. It is one that 'needs to be written, deep down, lived'.
In this poem Kathleen Wenaden considers compassion fatigue, a topic of some importance to GPs. When faced with 'an urge for fixing, for making better', is there really 'nothing left to give'?
In her poem, Kathleen Wenaden describes the inequality she sees in her Hackney practice. She considers too burnout and the strain of working in general practice. But is there nevertheless some positivity to be found here?
Around 2000 years ago St Paul taught that love for others was the most important virtue, much greater than knowledge or wealth. Here, Fraser Barratt and Scott A Murray MBE have adapted his memorable words to help inform and guide busy doctors
This beautifully-produced, sensitive memoir and art history begins with a quote from Euripides, capturing the yearning of anyone who has been bereaved, “Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream”.
In the summer before COVID-19 it the UK, I read three works of fiction (one after another) that changed my perspective on the world and our place in it: The Wall, The World according to Anna, and The Ministry for Future
The recent release of “Queen Charlotte”, the Bridgerton spin-off series on Netflix, has reignited interest in the illness of King George III. Whilst the series is described as ‘fiction inspired by fact,’ the story of King George leads into the wider
How many of us allow ourselves the possibility that from our vantage point as general practitioners, we may have had our focus so sharpened by years of walking alongside our patients that we might see the benefit of a letter where bland
here’s no appointments, and I’ve waited weeks, To show you my piles, and rash on my cheeks, I’ve also had chest pains, for the last year, And there’s just one more thing, now that I’m here!
I am trying to patch a clinical web over your problem ...Empathetically. Communicating blind. Flushing the darkness systematically with questions ...That dredge the deep... A poem by Rebecca Quinn.
My love for those who could not help themselves was fuelled by passion,
As medicine became my way of helping them with care and compassion.
The winning submission of the Royal Society of Medicine John Fry Prize by Salwa Ahmad.
Mark Pearson and colleagues present a number of powerful poems submitted by participants of long COVID support groups exploring their experience of long COVID.
'I hoped it would be all right...' is a temptation to be resisted, leading to the final bind the researcher find him/herself in as it dawns that all is not all right.
Alexandre Dumas’s 19th century French novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, doesn’t usually make the list of standard medical texts but perhaps it should not be so readily dismissed. It captures the spirit of an age when medicine was undergoing a revolution...
"It’s the best show we have seen in years ... " — Polyester elephants on 6 foot plinths, grotesque life-sized cloth dolls, and robotic snakes — it's the return of the Venice Biennale, reviewed by Will Norman
‘Yes dad, a little dash like normal.’ I never knew how to reply. Was he asking a question? Was he just making a statement, did he even want milk in it? Had he forgotten how he had his tea? I never knew
During the UK pandemic lockdowns of 2020–21 an online literary festival was held by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, and the talks are freely available online. Andrew Papanikitas invites readers online and back in time!
Found poetry is created by taking words and phrases from other sources and reframing them - the literary equivalent of a collage. Jessica Watson and Fiona Hamilton demonstrate how the approach can be applied to qualitative research to capture and share experiences
Movies allow health care professionals to immerse themselves in “near-true” experiences that challenge their values and principles. Beatrice Khater and Bassem Saab discuss using The Last King of Scotland in family medicine training at the American University of Beirut
Ben Hoban reflects on general practice as a 'Hero's journey,' but argues that this must be reconciled with the patient narrative. Don your narrative bifocals!
Hannah Weston-Simons shares an ode to her GP colleagues