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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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Falling off the swing

...illness is something normal, to be borne while the pendulum swings that way in expectation that it will soon swing back again. Most of the time, it does, and it is easy for us to claim credit as doctors, even though we
24 April 2024
3 mins read

Does Google make me look more or less stupid?

There’s a real risk often voiced by GPs that using Google will make them look stupid in front of the patient, and while there is evidence this can happen, especially with younger patients, it’s often not as bad as we think ...
22 April 2024
2 mins read
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A charter for dying

Paul was diagnosed with locally advanced cancer in 2019. Paul was under no illusion about his prognosis and from an early point he openly discussed what his future was likely to hold .He set out very clearly what was most important to
19 April 2024
4 mins read
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Beware of little worlds

We cannot manage without models, but it is easy to forget that they are not the same as reality, and that their utility depends not just on their ability to provide a sense of congruence, but on the degree to which they
11 April 2024
3 mins read

A Necessary Kindness

The author strongly supports a woman’s right to choose, arguing for the decriminalisation of abortion in the UK, suggesting that it should be regulated as a part of healthcare. She describes recent cases where women have been given custodial sentences which have
6 April 2024
1 min read
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Where ocean sailing and medical practice converge

The greatest challenge was a general practice one: not making a definitive diagnosis but to triage, having to decide what was safe to watch and wait, what could be managed with resources onboard the ship, what needed to be seen on land,
5 April 2024
4 mins read

Public (dis)satisfaction with general practice

The results of this survey are depressing yet unsurprising – GPs are thoroughly aware of both their increasing workloads and helpless inability to satisfy the relentlessly growing demand, despite our best efforts. 
3 April 2024
3 mins read

Diverging at the horizon

Train-tracks approaching the horizon appear to converge, although in reality, they remain equidistant. UK General Practice finds itself on a train journey along tracks which seem to do the opposite: the further down the line we look, the more they diverge. Should
25 March 2024
3 mins read

The Diary of a Somebody: on the banality of heroism

"What Nicky Winton had once done was save the lives of 669 children, for whom he arranged air and rail journeys to the UK after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. As it happens, one of the children he saved was my
23 March 2024
4 mins read
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The risks of medical investigation are often overlooked

Investigations themselves can throw up results that are difficult to interpret, and they may reveal abnormalities of uncertain significance. To highlight these issues to our patients would constitute more ethical practice, would foster greater patient empowerment, and could result in a frame
22 March 2024
6 mins read
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At the National Theatre: Nye

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.
21 March 2024
2 mins read
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The emergence of ‘surrogate uncertainty’

The clinician who has seen the patient has now “off-loaded” their uncertainty on to the broad shoulders of the GP who has to now carry this “surrogate uncertainty” along with all their other worries for the day. It is true that GPs
13 March 2024
2 mins read
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