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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.

Medicine’s caste system of the mind

"Both patients had the same symptoms and required the same care. However, one mind made the work smooth; the other made it onerous. Without malice or awareness, the GP sorted them into different moral categories: the organised mind that deserves time, and
25 March 2026
4 mins read

2025: the Larkins Lotto resolved

"I can see what has happened. Marj and I have known each other for years. I appreciate this is unusual given national policy promoting episodic care as it does. She has sometimes had to submit requests many times, she tells me, and
23 March 2026
2 mins read

Time is the physics of care

"Time is not simply a tool for scheduling health care; it is the very medium through which care’s quality, safety, and justice are realised. It compresses attention, creates inertia, imposes thresholds, and dissipates energy. If we want to understand why care sometimes
18 March 2026
3 mins read

Fine. Thanks.

What if we were to let the patient into our own inner world; of battling against the clock, the relentless stacking up of admin that occurs in real time as the consultation progresses ... the lack of time in our relationships at
11 March 2026
2 mins read

I’m a GP — do you still trust me?

Trust is not visible, but you miss it when you lose it. Trust develops from many inputs that include memories, beliefs, and emotions that help us predict how someone may act.
7 March 2026
4 mins read

Museums of medical curiosities

"Dragon’s blood potion, a case of 100 prosthetic glass eyes, a secret subterranean alchemist’s workshop, and devices used to protect against body snatchers are a few of the medical curiosities I’ve discovered on my recent travels ..."
28 February 2026
4 mins read

Who decides what counts as illness?

Patients’ apologies for “wasting time” are not personal quirks but learned responses to a system that often treats unexplained symptoms as data rather than lived experience.
25 February 2026
3 mins read

Let’s just do some bloods…

Anyone can implement a protocol. Anyone can order a blood test. The real skill of a primary care clinician is in navigating the complexity and finding a helpful path forward for the unique individual in front of us.
23 February 2026
3 mins read

The consultation beneath the consultation

I almost missed it. My instinct was to dive into the prescription screen. But something in her silence caught me. I paused and softened my voice. “You seem like you’re carrying a lot today.”
20 February 2026
4 mins read

Persisting, in spite of everything

The stubs of skyscrapers left over from the last air-burst remind her that there’s no going back; they’re just navigational markers now. Grass pushes up through the cracks, same as always, persisting in spite of everything.
13 February 2026
5 mins read

We need to talk about dying

"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 ..."
9 February 2026
15 mins read
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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.
7 February 2026
1 min read
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Ode to Diagnosis

Lines written by a doctor, after an elderly man presents with a positive PSA test, trying to decide what to do next. A poem.
6 February 2026
1 min read
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