In October and November 2024, Brian Lambert spent six weeks volunteering as a ‘medic’ at the Mavrovouni refugee camp on Lesvos, working for the Dutch charity the Boat Refugee Foundation (BRF).
Lockdown has affected not only patients and doctors, but will affect the future of general practice itself. Maxwell Cooper gives us a heads up.
Anita Campbell brings us up to date with the activities of the RCGP Later Career and Retired Members (LCARM) Group.
The NHS must keep all records until 10 years after a patient's death. With paper records taking up valuable space, retired GP and primary care notes summariser Nigel Masters asks, is it finally time for us to take a 'destructive step' and
Trust is an essential part of the doctor–patient relationship, but how is it formed, nurtured, and perhaps most importantly, broken? Dr Sheena Sharma writes openly on her own experience of trust, both as a GP and a patient, and at an individual
Anxious and depressed people become preoccupied with their stressors. And if you are worried about covid then social media has become a great place to get more worried. Daniel James is getting concerned about the harm that may be caused by social
Wither GP after Covid? For Peter Toon, if healthcare is to flourish as an activity which promotes human flourishing and produces internal goods such as knowledge, skill, joy and love, not subject to a “zero-sum” rule, then an interpretive function must be central.
Research scientists spend an appreciable amount of time considering how they can best collect the data needed for a given study. Perhaps, as we return to some sort of new normal, GPs need to do the same as we evaluate the changes
New NICE guidelines suggest that patients with chronic primary pain should be withdrawn from ‘addictive’ analgesic and benzodiazepine medicines – and that ‘non-addictive’ antidepressants should be the only pharmacological option ‘recommended’. For Marion Brown this scenario is fraught with problems - might it
General Practice after Covid: is there a role for retired GPs in the post-covid era? Ashley Liston says yes!
Pamela Martin listens in to a future GP recruitment interview.....
General Practice after Covid? For Asif Yaseen it means having a few face to face clinics a week with the rest of the appointments being remote.
Working differently has certainly brought some challenges but also some unforeseen opportunities and scope for innovation. Vasumathy Sivarajasingam shares her vision for the future.
There will be many challenges for the NHS once the worst of the pandemic has passed. Judith Dawson suggests that honesty will be the best policy.
What should general practice do to help young people in the post-Covid world? Richard Churchill tells us not to ask ourselves, but to ask them. We should involve young people in the re-design of services.
Richard Armitage sees remote home monitoring for non-communicable diseases including atrial fibrillation, asthma, hypertension and diabetes, as a major opportunity for primary care.
We have all had to endure social distancing for nearly a year now. Peter Aird urges us over the coming months to look to leave social distancing behind – in all its forms. Let’s look to sit down with, and care for,
BJGP Life put out a call for articles on the theme of “General Practice after Covid-19“. During the rest of April we will be publishing the best of them. These articles advocate many different paths, some mutually contradictory, so do read them
How should General Practice change after Covid? Julia Darko suggests five lessons and five ways for general practice to move forward.
Jane Roberts finds that a day of clinical work can feel like having your head pummelled in a washing machine. She tells us about how she deals with stress by her practice of yoga.
Rosie Marshall shares her very personal journey though burnout. She concludes that only through recognising and validating our humanity and our lack of resilience are we likely to seek appropriate support or begin to effectively change underlying systems.
Modern Wales was built on the production of coal, though with it brought great losses: harsh working conditions, industrial pollution, and tragic disasters, such as that which occurred at Aberfan. With the Welsh government's proposal to ban coal, Rhodri Evans provides a
Will reached communities become “Hard to reach” again after the covid-19 vaccine rollout? Datapwa Mujong reflects on our way forward.
Most of the public are opposed to the privatisation of the NHS. But US corporate giant Centene, a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange is now in control of 58 GP surgeries across the UK. Jatinder Hayre warns
Aye Soe alerts us to the difficulties that doctors are facing in Myanmar as they seek to vaccinate the population, but are harrased by the military junta following the recent coup.
What lies behind the patient who repeats their stories in every consultation? As the story repeats, the clinician can sometimes feel that no ground is being gained. But behind the surface of retelling may lie deep and hidden traumas.
Fake news and consipracy theories are nothing new. Stuart Hannabuss introduces us to the seventeenth century physician and cleric Sir Thomas Browne, who was doing his best to debunk them even then.
Matt Hawkins argues that our modern political system is constructed on a falsehood: the belief that care, empathy, and compassion have little or nothing to add to the cut and thrust of politics. Surely, though, Covid has taught us that this simply
Amanda Wharton, a retired GP, shares the lessons she learned from the death of her daughter. This will be one of the most important articles you will read this year.
The "Wise GP" website aims to provide a set of resources that can be used by GPs, GP trainees, medical students and the general public that show the complexity in general practice and some of what GP scholarship involves. It sounds like
Doctors and counsellors may have very different roles, but also a huge overlap of their relationship with their patients or clients. Dr Stuart Hannabuss, an honorary humanist university chaplain, talks us through some of the pitfalls and opportunities.
Clinicians and healthcare systems allow subtle forms of dehumanisation to enter clinical practice, so that people are treated as objects within the system. Judith Dawson appeal to us to watch our language!
Getting a place in medical school should be a matter of meritocracy. One’s socioeconomic background or personal connections should not affect it; there should be a level playing field. But how do we achieve this? Ishaq Miah, Farzeen Mahmood, Mahin Amir, Sagal
Telephone encounters may be more efficient and safer during the pandemic but but Judith Reeder argues that they are inferior to the interaction that occurs when you are able to share words and emotions face to face.
Ashley Liston, having been a GP for 34 years, chose to postpone his retirement to work in wave one of the pandemic. He tells about the lessons he has learned about working in new teams and his hopes for the future of
According to Euripides, "the sea washes away all men's illnesses". However Tadhg Crowley gives some less marine but more pragmatic advice as to how we can maintain our own mental wellbeing.
The COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted the detrimental effects of long-term loneliness. Niha Hussain gives us a useful mnemonic to help us to ask about support networks when taking a history, and continue to help us to direct patients to use a wider
Raising public awareness of Domestic Abuse (DA) is the first step forward in our battle to combat the detrimental health consequences of the abuse. Vasumathy Sivarajasingam offers some vital practical advice and excellent resource links to help us to identify and help
Spiritual health can be stigmatised, and doctors may be uncomfortable with the topic. Orla Whitehead discusses her own investigation into doctors' spiritual health in a time of Covid.
Richard Armitage reminds us that children may suffer lifelong effects from bullying, as a less visible complication of the current Covid pandemic.
A recent survey found that 72% of black and 42% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people say they were unlikely to have the vaccine. Samar Razaq explores the reasons why.