Clicky

Opinion

·

A Thorny Issue

Despite John Fry's adage that says common diseases are most frequent, I encountered many rare conditions during my thirty years of practice. This medical rarity just happened to involve my daughter’s foot and occurred after I retired.
3 July 2026
2 mins read

Correct, but not reassuring

A few days later, I was told that the tax had been paid ...Problem solved... Then another letter arrived. A timely reflection on reassurance.
27 June 2026
3 mins read
·

In desperate need of idleness

Idleness encompasses all the things that enable us to flourish as individuals and as a society but get shunted into our own time (what’s left of it). Healthcare workers need time to think, to read, to recover.
26 June 2026
4 mins read
·

Cancer as a form of sociology edgework

Edgework is a concept that describes situations where people exist close to the edge between life and death, safety and danger and must use significant skill to navigate their way across, and survive, this edge. It helps us see the patient as
25 June 2026
3 mins read
4

Making sense together after algorithms

Imagine a man in his 30s presenting with palpitations. Before attending, he has used a symptom checker, reviewed his smartwatch data, and read discussions online. He arrives with a list of possibilities — anxious but also informed.
22 June 2026
3 mins read
·

Gatekeepers at the exit

General practitioners, while bearing uncertainty about the need for specialist intervention, sustain continuous and comprehensive relationships with patients. I would argue that super-aged societies also require gatekeepers at the exit from medicine.
19 June 2026
2 mins read

The digital panopticon, tentacles not included

Every time we examine ourselves for lumps, wonder how long  a mole has been there, or casually inspect the toilet bowl, we internalise this gaze, seeing ourselves through another’s eyes like inmates of the panopticon. We talk without irony about healthcare surveillance,
11 June 2026
5 mins read

Diving back in

So it took a few months to get back, agree to a few locums, then actually turn up and dive back in. Only then have I been able to decide how I still feel about medicine. And the answer has surprised me.
8 June 2026
2 mins read
·

Don’t be a reverse centaur!

A reverse centaur is a person who has been conscripted to serve as a helper for a machine, at an inhuman, machine pace ... many of the articles coming through BJGP Life extend this idea into medicine.
29 May 2026
4 mins read

The weight of ordinary things

What we lose when we lose the thinking space of the consultation is not administrative efficiency. It is a form of clinical knowledge that cannot be generated any other way: knowledge that emerges when a clinician holds the whole patient in mind
25 May 2026
2 mins read
·

The dilemma of GP triage: a poem with reflection

We are keepers of patients’ stories and often we cannot help but open the Pandora’s box : who has written this – was it a relative, an obliging receptionist or a tech savvy grandchild? Why have they used those words, what does
7 May 2026
2 mins read
1 2 3 … 30