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BJGP Life

BJGP Life

The BJGP is the world-leading primary care journal. At BJGP Life we add multi-media comment and opinion for the primary care community.

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Medical tourism: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Medical tourism doesn’t reduce NHS workload. It splits it. The funded, planned, well-resourced part of care happens elsewhere. The complications, the uncertainty, the chronic follow-up land back in general practice. Without warning. Without resource. And without anyone having agreed to it.
9 July 2026
4 mins read
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A Thorny Issue

Despite John Fry's adage that says common diseases are most frequent, I encountered many rare conditions during my thirty years of practice. This medical rarity just happened to involve my daughter’s foot and occurred after I retired.
3 July 2026
2 mins read

Correct, but not reassuring

A few days later, I was told that the tax had been paid ...Problem solved... Then another letter arrived. A timely reflection on reassurance.
27 June 2026
3 mins read
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Cancer as a form of sociology edgework

Edgework is a concept that describes situations where people exist close to the edge between life and death, safety and danger and must use significant skill to navigate their way across, and survive, this edge. It helps us see the patient as
25 June 2026
3 mins read
4

Making sense together after algorithms

Imagine a man in his 30s presenting with palpitations. Before attending, he has used a symptom checker, reviewed his smartwatch data, and read discussions online. He arrives with a list of possibilities — anxious but also informed.
22 June 2026
3 mins read
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Gatekeepers at the exit

General practitioners, while bearing uncertainty about the need for specialist intervention, sustain continuous and comprehensive relationships with patients. I would argue that super-aged societies also require gatekeepers at the exit from medicine.
19 June 2026
2 mins read
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Prescribed

Good health signs off full participation in this world, pure of heart prepares us for the next. Hoc est corpus, sent to your chosen pharmacy.
18 June 2026
1 min read
1
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Exhibition review: A Second Life by Tracey Emin

"Emin, through her art, has converted the chaos generated from sexual abuse and poverty in early life into a beautiful lens for us to understand ourselves and our patients better." - Hector Watson and Elizabeth Walton review Tracey Emin's A Second Life,
13 June 2026
3 mins read
1

The digital panopticon, tentacles not included

Every time we examine ourselves for lumps, wonder how long  a mole has been there, or casually inspect the toilet bowl, we internalise this gaze, seeing ourselves through another’s eyes like inmates of the panopticon. We talk without irony about healthcare surveillance,
11 June 2026
5 mins read

Diving back in

So it took a few months to get back, agree to a few locums, then actually turn up and dive back in. Only then have I been able to decide how I still feel about medicine. And the answer has surprised me.
8 June 2026
2 mins read
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Three Encounters (A poem)

We are medical students who have who have been inspired and moved by the storied nature of the consultations we saw in general practice to express this as a three-part poem.
27 May 2026
1 min read
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