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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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Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey

My assumption was of a middle class journalist parachuting in to a deprived area and reporting through his own middle class lens. How wrong I was – this is actually the extraordinarily reflective work of a man who grew up with poverty
8 April 2023
7 mins read
1
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Imagining the future

The place of Medicine in our imagined future, science fiction, tends to be defined by technology. As in science fiction, so in medicine there is a constant tension between the technological and the human, what is possible and what is desirable.
5 April 2023
3 mins read
1

Book review: Building Blocks in Paediatrics

"Building Blocks in Paediatrics builds bridges. It builds a bridge between the everyday presentation of undifferentiated childrens’ problems and the core of paediatric medicine." - David Misselbrook reviews Building Blocks in Paediatrics edited by Alfred Nicholson and Kevin Dunne ...
1 April 2023
2 mins read

To bend or to break

Is the ‘human touch’ aspect of care necessary? Perhaps not. But does it change patient experience? For sure. And does it take much time? No. I refuse to believe it would add delays and hinder efficiency. The front-line role of reception and
29 March 2023
2 mins read

Flash fiction: Sunset

I always walk home from work. It gets me moving after 10 hours of mostly sitting in other people’s heads. My walk home is an oasis of no small talk, no confusion, no hidden agendas...
26 March 2023
1 min read
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“We threw the guidelines at her.”

Careful, caring and person-centred application of guidance is required to ensure patients benefit from, and are not harmed by, healthcare. I’d like to talk about Joan, an 86-year-old lady who had rarely visited the surgery. We threw the guidelines at her...
25 March 2023
3 mins read
2
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Living in the third age of medicine

In the First and Second Ages, medicine was transacted between individual patients and doctors at times of illness. The Third Age, in which we find ourselves currently, is associated with the development of a much bigger picture in which this is no
23 March 2023
5 mins read
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General practice allies

Now imagine, that for the majority of cases being presented, the consultant condescendingly - and unnecessarily - adds, at the end of the majority of cases, that they had been diagnosed and managed wrongly by the 'incompetent' GP prior to coming to
20 March 2023
4 mins read
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Your child’s GP

...After a long day being your child’s GP, I come home. I get a few tantrums, followed by a cuddle 10 minutes later. I am a mum, just like you.
19 March 2023
1 min read

At the Heart of the Universe: a novel by Samuel Shem

Shem is a pseudonym for an American psychiatrist who adopted his daughter with his wife. Whilst his book is fictional, I could feel his real-life experience in the sensitivity of his insights. Adoptive parents can have a feeling of inadequacy and a
18 March 2023
2 mins read
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A week in the day of Dr Somebody’s Diary

Dr Somebody* is a fictional late middle aged, mild to moderately burnout GP Partner in North London; he is suspicious about the current managerial changes in the NHS; his motto however is "contented with little, yet wishing for more", and at heart
12 March 2023
8 mins read

Recovery, by Gavin Francis

I think it would be fair to say that none of my medical school curriculum was dedicated to the radical idea of convalescence... Instead from Day 1 we were taught the cutting edge of knowledge and skill to be able to take
11 March 2023
3 mins read
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Video consultation services – A paradoxical lifeline

They are billed as digital solutions, but they simply offer a locum GP, restricted to video. My experience over the last 3 years leading a GP federation has opened my eyes to the long-term perils of short-term solutions such as this.
10 March 2023
4 mins read
1
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Being an ethnic doctor is easier … but not easy

My parents being immigrants, enforced into us to keep our heads down and work hard, to adopt a ‘don’t cause trouble’ attitude... Being called these occasional names I still performed well academically at school, it never placed limits. Life was good …
9 March 2023
2 mins read
2

English Pastoral and rural primary care

"Who has been in charge of the processes of change in the last 20 years? What ingredients must be restored now that we have a full-blown factory farm model of primary care medicine? Is it too late to save family medicine 70
4 March 2023
10 mins read
3

Waiting for a National Health Godot

The phrase ‘we can’t go on like this’ is frequently banded around on social media in relation to the NHS. However, it seems that the staff working within this organisation can, and are; but at what cost?
26 February 2023
1 min read
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Seeing and hearing

Ask any doctor, and they’ll tell you that talking to patients can be difficult. Mind you, ask any patient and they’ll tell you that talking to doctors can be really difficult too. Ben Hoban discusses how we address the problem.
23 February 2023
3 mins read
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