Clicky

BJGP Long Read - Page 8

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

Change and progress

In the surgery, patients still express the hopelessness of their lived reality: lives built around sitting; exercise options that are difficult to access geographically and financially; and the cheapest food options too often the ‘wrong’ choices...
24 March 2023
4 mins read

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

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

GPs are far more than gatekeepers…

So, is the description of the GP as a ‘gatekeeper’ outdated? I would argue it is. GPs are not trying to block access to specialists. Rather, through their distinct expertise, they provide a safety net for patients who could risk further harm
15 February 2023
5 mins read

Being philosophical when it’s complicated

We can use concepts and language to share ideas/help us see things we might overlook. We can use the narratives of others to extend our own experiences of the world. The dangers from being intellectually and morally passive compel us to embrace
27 January 2023
5 mins read

General practice cannot be piecework

Piecework is advantageous for production where output volume is a reliable proxy for productivity and monitoring and incentivising output volume does not compromise quality. Lara Shemtob and colleagues argue this is inappropriate for general practice.
19 January 2023
5 mins read

The intelligence-wisdom gap, and the urgent need to close it

Due to the accelerating power of our technological arsenal, and the contrasting stasis of our professional wisdom, the intelligence-wisdom gap is expanding at a blistering pace.  With formidable technologies on the scientific horizon – nanotechnology, CRISPR, and general-purpose AI – the necessity
7 November 2022
9 mins read

A tyranny of nouns

Doctors are inordinately fond of nouns. By and large, patients come to us not just with nouns, but with stories which include them but are driven along by verbs, words of action, backed up by adverbs, pronouns, and so on...
4 November 2022
4 mins read