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Opinion - Page 12

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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

Codes

Clinical codes are of course created by the machines’ human lackeys, but sometimes betray a way of thinking that is hard to relate to.  Ben Hoban muses on how we record clinical consultation data.
2 August 2023
3 mins read

So what is a pathway anyway?

The term 'pathway' is commonly used within the NHS to describe the sequence of steps and services involved in a patient's care. While ‘pathway’ may be familiar and well-understood among healthcare professionals, this is far from the case with the public.
31 July 2023
3 mins read

The Aboriginal definition of health

The service I work in was set up by the local Aboriginal community, because they were being poorly served by the health services that existed at the time. Part of this was that the options offered seemed to operate on a narrow,
21 July 2023
2 mins read
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Shall we all move to Denmark?

In a podcast recorded by the Medical Republic, Jens Sondergaard outlined six main reasons it’s great to work in Danish general practice. Nada Khan weighs up the evidence for moving to Denmark.
17 July 2023
5 mins read
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Caring for carers

'Caring for carers is everyone’s business, though general practitioners (and we use our words wisely) are perhaps best placed to identify and support carers -more so than other health professionals.' argue Helen Walker and Clare Gerada
14 July 2023
4 mins read
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Seeing the tiger

If we want to avoid missing significant diagnoses, and tigers, we cannot examine every symptom or blade of grass exhaustively, but we can cultivate an openness to the sort of cognitive dissonance that points to unrecognised danger. Ben Hoban explains
13 July 2023
3 mins read

Mould and its human toll

In both primary and secondary care, we see firsthand the concerning, growing impact of mould on the health and wellbeing of our patients. These cases are a stark reminder of how significantly more needs to be done to combat the devastating impact
6 July 2023
3 mins read

Getting on with strangers

Our relationships with patients are more than just transactional, but they do not need to be based on affection or necessarily on duration. A good doctor-patient relationship is simply one that enables both parties to bridge the gap between them, and it
25 June 2023
3 mins read

Failure to launch

Hannah Milton discusses...a gradual withdrawal from social life starting in mid-teens, often with school refusal alongside an altered sleep pattern, gaming or social media addiction and a restricted and unhealthy diet with a total lack of exercise.
22 June 2023
2 mins read

GPs: Tell your patients how your surgery works

Today it is for you and your colleagues to rebuild and sustain those relationships. You have a wonderful tool for doing this in your surgery’s website. Use it to tell your patients how your surgery works.
12 June 2023
3 mins read
2
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An ecological prescription for primary care?

The wolves in the forest that frighten human beings are now at last being accurately named: poverty, homelessness, hunger, unemployment, domestic abuse, adverse childhood experiences. Humans like sheep have a basic need to feel safe. They can’t function well until that need
8 June 2023
9 mins read

Keeping behind the curve

"We regularly face a level of demand that we don’t have the resources to meet. We gradually downgrade our aspiration from thriving to functioning to surviving, and our only options look like pushing through or getting out. Simply going on as we
1 June 2023
4 mins read

The hidden shelves – locum and academic GPs

Nada Khan finds two hidden 'shelves' of GPs who might bolster the primary care workforce: the shelf with locum GPs, and the shelf of academic GPs. What is the contribution to the GP workforce of these shelves of GPs, and how might
22 May 2023
5 mins read
2
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Experiencing Asherman’s Syndrome

Yet, from speaking to other women with this condition, I have learnt that it is often their GP that they consult with first, asking: why are my periods lighter since my miscarriage? why have my periods stopped? Could something be wrong, as
14 May 2023
2 mins read
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