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Opinion

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
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A syllabus for whole-person medicine

Understanding the whole person also means understanding who and what affects that person - who and what enables and inhibits a person’s ability to respond creatively to the ups and downs of daily life. Such spheres of influence and their effects are
27 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
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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

Action required

Tired of scanning hospital letters to try and spot if there was anything that would necessitate action, it seemed like a simple solution: hospital teams would in future put any such information into a headed section...
5 February 2026
2 mins read
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Icarus Plummeting

Zigmond mercilessly describes the ways in which our healthcare systems have made us less able to listen to the patient’s experience, less able to see their experience in the context of their life, their family and their social circumstances.
31 January 2026
2 mins read
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How doctors learn not to listen

Students learn that ambiguity is risky, uncertainty should be resolved, and experience must be rendered legible through diagnosis. They learn to apply the gaze, filtering out the “noise” of life to find the signal of disease.
21 January 2026
3 mins read
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When normal tests end care too early

Medicine is remarkably effective at identifying disease. Yet when symptoms persist without a clear diagnosis, it often falters—not because knowledge is lacking, but because legitimacy quietly evaporates.
13 January 2026
3 mins read
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Monty Hall for doctors

Three doors are visible to the audience, behind one of which is a car; behind the others are two goats, presumably sedated to stop them giving themselves away...
12 January 2026
5 mins read

Every gap is an educational gap

"Recently I saw Ted and Rachel. They were living temporarily in a share house as they had recently been made homeless. Ted is a happy man despite his current circumstances, but has diabetes that is not well controlled. He takes his medication,
9 January 2026
2 mins read

Seeing double

Alongside them is another person, invisible and nameless. This is the person shaped by fear, experience, and memory; by what they have learned it is safe to say, and what it costs to say more.
8 January 2026
2 mins read
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The three-body problem

The physics of Cixin Liu’s alien world make it a hazardous place to live, and the consultation can sometimes also feel like a minefield of hidden agendas, competing interests, and impossible choices.
5 January 2026
5 mins read
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The machine that goes ping

But who cares? Well, it is a distraction, an overload of trivial alarm signals from a built in buffoon while I am trying to drive a car on a dark winter evening in the rain.
3 January 2026
3 mins read
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A ‘wassail’ for the new year!

"'Wassail’ is an apt greeting to a medical journal community — it derives from the Old English was hál, meaning ‘be hale’ or ‘be in good health’. ... As we wassail 2026 ... [w]hether you are a reader or writer, let’s face
2 January 2026
4 mins read

Dwelling in uncertainty: the GP’s expertise

Expertise in general practice blends knowledge, skill, judgement, and relationships. It’s less about certainty than managing uncertainty with care. True expertise integrates evidence, intuition, reflection, and empathy; it develops through both formal training and the hidden curriculum. Ultimately, it’s a dynamic, lifelong
30 December 2025
3 mins read
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A Christmas wish from BJGP Life

Merry Christmas from BJGP Life. This year I'd like to focus on the idea that medicine, and general practice in particular, might be an engine of peace, and instrument of health and wellbeing. 'Thoughts and Prayers' embodied in meaningful professional activity. 
25 December 2025
2 mins read
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