Paul Hepple reviews 'An ordinary doctor' by Susie West, and is captivated, inspired and angered
There are three levels of general practice: generalist practice approach, general generalist practice and expert generalist practice. Koki Kato explains how they can help GPs explain what they do.
Bakula Patel asks is cracking work-life balance is as simple as considering life-work balance? Comments welcome!
Around 80% of all care in the UK is self-care, but despite people's willingness to initially self-treat, minor ailments contribute to 57 million GP consultations a year. How then can GPs promote continued self-care to patients?
Nada Khan examines the increasing waiting times for ambulances, finding a system under pressure and dilemmas for clinical staff.
Dr Sean MacBride-Stewart tells us about a large cluster RCT looking into the impact of feedback of actionable individual patient prescription data to improve asthma prescribing.
Tim Senior reflects on what makes a 'virtuoso' GP. Is a question of detective skills or the ability to establish a rapport?
Richard Armitage argues that good management of hay fever represents an opportunity for general practice to reduce suffering and restore both wellbeing and economic activity to the nation!
"a self-help-style read for patients seeking methods of improving their own mental wellbeing" — Lucy Martin reviews How to Rise: A Complete Resilience Manual by Karen Forshaw and Chrissie Mowbray
Peter Lindsay reviews Jeremy Hunt's new book, Zero
At the beginning of my foundation training I had very limited awareness of the diversity of the clinical workforce and was only familiar with 'traditional' doctor roles. However, I was surprised to find myself in the midst of a large, multiskilled dynamic
Approximately 1%–2% of the adult population experience stammering, which can have a significant impact on a person's quality of life. Here, members of the NHS Stammering Network (for staff) describe how best to optimise consultations with this patient group.
In 2020, Sir Michael Marmot and his team at the Institute of Health Equity published ‘Build Back Fairer’ to examine how the Covid pandemic affected health inequalities in England. Nada Khan discuss a grim but inspiring document.
Dr Jess Watson tells us about a qualitative study that explored how blood tests are communicated to patients.
The Department for Work and Pensions has recently announced legislative change that will allow a wider range of healthcare professionals to authorise fit notes. Is this an opportunity for general practice to improve patient access to occupational health support?
There is an enormous body of information on diet and nutrition, but how do you know what dietary information to recommend to patients? Terry Kemple reviews The Nutrition Proposition by James McCormack and Marcie Gray, where "most questions about nutrition and
The waves of nausea as I lay in the hotel bed were incessant. Away on a long-planned holiday to New York with my partner, the morning sickness had hit at week 6 of my pregnancy ...
TDR programmes consist of a low calorie (around 800 kcal/day) formula diet alongside a stepped food reintroduction as well as regular behavioural support. Yusuf Ben-Tarifite examines the evidence for TDR in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
The NHS is facing a backlog that will take years to clear and GPs are likely to be the main point of contact for patients who are suffering as a result. Nada Khan examines the issues.
You and I may observe the same event but give different accounts based on our own understanding of what we’ve seen, influenced by how we felt, our past experiences and values. Ben Hoban discusses storytelling as a clinical phenomenon.
Richard Armitage investigates the impact of the war in Ukraine on the country’s health worker density.
Six authors of differing careers, backgrounds, and geography write about their mothers’ lives in six chapters - Our Mothers Ourselves, reviewed by Hannah Milton
A book "of interest to students, GPs, AiTs, patients, and even medical historians" — Professor Amanda Howe reviews The Tales of a Suffolk GP by Andrew Yager
Although the GPs may well be aware that the ‘climate emergency’ is also a ‘health emergency, many of us do not make the connection with clinical practice when it comes to taking action. We often fail to realise that the majority of
How can we encourage the development of kindness toward ourselves and others? Is it something we can train, and should it perhaps be a part of the GP curriculum? Touching on their own personal experience of being on the receiving end of
Bhupinder Goraya muses on the concepts of order and randomness in relation to health and primary healthcare. We’ve worked 'bloody hard' to make a random mechanical universe work, in doing so we have ordered our leisure.
Anaemia is a serious public health concern globally, yet WHO's cut-off values for Hgb were established in 1968 using predominantly White populations in Europe and North America. Is it time to update to population specific cut-offs?
How do we support each other when a colleague dies by suicide? A reflection by Louise Stone.
Laura Heath discusses ‘trade-offs’ that we should reflect on in modern primary care. Are we clinical providers or clinical supervisors? Data sharers or data stewards? Secondary care helpers, or expert generalists? If our voice is not heard the ‘trade off’ will be
Dr Anita Lim joins the podcast to tell us about a further study on non-speculum clinician-taken sampling for cervical screening.
Nada Khan explores the roles of and our perceptions about primary care multidiciplinary teams, in light of the recent BBC Panorama investigation
The Ukrainian system of medical education is considered to be both one of the highest quality and relative affordability in the world. Richard Armitage reports how things are affected by the war in Ukraine.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a significant and well-recognised threat to human health in Ukraine. Richard Armitage discusses how this is further complicated by the war.
"... it is never too late to start accruing benefit [from exercise]" — Karen O’Reilly, GP, reviews Get Off The Couch Before It's Too Late: All The Whys and Wherefores of Exercise by Hugh Bethell
General practices and staff have been facing violent behaviour or aggression from members of the public -a global phenomenon now an UK issue. Vasumathy Sivarajasingam asks, what's happening, so what, and what now?
You are probably familiar with the idea of cognitive bias: a trick of the mind that stops you seeing what’s in front of you or thinking clearly, something that’s a recognised cause of diagnostic error. Ben Hoban introduces the psychological menagerie...
'One man in his time plays many parts' — What is the role of the older, experienced GP? In retiring, this ‘premature abdication’ represents an enormous loss to the NHS. Here, Maxwell Cooper and colleagues outline a vision for a future general
Dr Sarah Price comes on the podcast to tell us about research exploring the role of abdominal pain with and without other clinical features and intra-abdominal cancer risk.
For as long as the war in Ukraine continues, the country’s existing substantial unmet need for palliative care and pain relief will increasingly intensify, and ever greater numbers of people with life-limiting conditions will experience intolerable yet preventable suffering at the most
Rebecca Mawson reviews 2 books different in tone but equally sound on the subject of the menopause.