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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.

Book review: Habitual Ethics?

As a GP, do you consider yourself the living embodiment of practical virtue? Or just an ordinary doctor struggling to do a decent job for as many hours as the day provides? You could argue that there is really no great difference
4 November 2023
5 mins read
2

I Would Like to Talk About Why Life is so Unequal

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?
31 October 2023
1 min read

Having ‘Mental health’

The way we talk about mental ill health can end up creating a linguistic black box which we see but cannot see inside. How then can we know what to expect from our distressed patients, and how best to help them? Ben
30 October 2023
4 mins read

Flourishing at work

Kathleen Wenaden looks back at the struggles and successes of her Hackney practice, and of how the work of the staff interweaves with the lives of the patients. She considers too the reinvigorating power of creativity and nature as ways for GPs
29 October 2023
8 mins read

Tired all the time

I don’t know the answer. But I think I’m feeling the same. I’m exhausted, but I won’t tell you that. It’s a conveyor-belt of emotions. Next customer please! Except this is not transactional. You have a story, and it’s my job to
26 October 2023
2 mins read

Medical generalism – now!

In Medical Generalism—Now!, Joanne Reeve extends her concept of the creative self. And she argues that the fundamental challenge for the contemporary primary care clinician is to honour the patient’s creative abilities and provide the kind of flexible, tailored care that allows
21 October 2023
4 mins read

Radical Help by Hilary Cottam

'A relational way of working, thinking and designing is one that creates possibility for change, one that creates abundance – our capacity for relationships, like love, is infinite.’ Emilie Couchman reviews a call for radical reform
15 October 2023
5 mins read

See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse

This book is important for GPs to read because domestic abuse is common and leads to longstanding health issues for women, children, and men. Robust evidence and research are interspersed between individual stories that illustrate the variety of forms that abuse can
12 October 2023
2 mins read

A game of two halves?

Giles Dawnay reflects on the tension between left and right brained view of life and how this might affect the general practitioner's clinical gaze.
11 October 2023
3 mins read
1

Rethinking continuity

If we look at continuity without considering the wider context of general practice, we may find ourselves being swept out to sea as we gaze longingly back at the beach. Ben Hoban helps us to reflect on the really useful elements of
4 October 2023
3 mins read

The great NHS heist

The argument is that, for decades, ‘business friendly’ governments have been allowing private interests to extract vast fortunes from the NHS and that over time the service has been increasingly reformed to make it ready for corporate takeover. This would make our
30 September 2023
2 mins read

‘What is a doctor?’ by Phil Whitaker

The title, ‘What is a doctor?’, neatly articulates a contemporary query. As the multidisciplinary team (MDT) becomes increasingly complex with additional moving parts, the role of the doctor becomes ever more difficult to describe. The memory of the ‘family doctor’ is fading.
23 September 2023
3 mins read
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