Last year we shared some party games. This year I'd like to share a concept for conversation. You could share it or leave it in the background of your psyche as the news and issues of the day mingle with the miscellanies
David Kernick explores two models that offer insights into the concept of healing, here taken as a facilitation of the body's intrinsic ability to restore optimum functioning: allostatic control and complex adaptive systems.
Most jobs now involve a screen and being online. "What does this new reality do our minds and brains?" is a question yet to have enough evidence to answer. However it is fast becoming clear that we are no happier or healthier
The idea of history repeating is historically recurrent. It goes back to the ancients, so there must be something in it. A case in point is the UK’s recent infected blood scandal ...
Andrew Papanikitas reviews and reflects on a good critical sourcebook on the law for GP trainers and trainees looking to flesh out a case-based discussion or tutorial, as well as for the GP looking for reading in response to a patient unmet
Against a backdrop of armed conflict and geo-political instability, medical education becomes a daunting challenge. Safiya Virji highlights a web-based resource which can be used offline.
“Medicine is a social science, and politics nothing but medicine at a larger scale." Mavin Kashyap invites us to think politics as a UK General election gets closer.
In a time of unprecedented pressure on health professionals, especially on GPs, how do we hang onto the magic ingredients that make those brief consultations count? A poem in answer.
Reducing medicine wastage requires a concerted effort from all stakeholders, and yields returns in terms of finance, well-being and the environment. Vasumathy Sivarajasingam explains.
There has long been a tendency for “Othering” certain general practitioner groups. Paula Wright unpacks the phenomenon.
Edin Lakasing and Shalinee Patel believe that this system offers poor value for public money, will needlessly increase practice workload, and risks having a corrosive effect on the trust fundamental to the relationship between healthcare workers and families.
So my big reveal was that I was a doctor. That is to say a human being who'd been to medical school and was employed in delivering healthcare, not someone who'd been born with supernatural skills to look into other people's souls
I think in the past I might have sneered at the idea of spending a few hours with performing artists when we had a busy job to get on with, and a never-ending to-do list to work through. But just ploughing on
David Law offers a positive experience of physician associate deployment at his practice, including how the practice accommodated the need for supervision.
Kindness is a disposition that can’t be policed and which grows out of care, attention and connection. To suggest it can be enforced and regulated for is a mistake, explain Rupal Shah and colleagues.
General practice plays a particularly important role in people's lives, supporting the health, livelihoods and lifestyles of individuals and communities. To fulfil this role effectively, GPs must embrace the idea that experience and learning are never wasted.
The Prescribing lifestyle medicine mental health and trauma course was something I cautiously signed up for... Upon arrival, I was amazed at the gathering of surgeons, GPs and nurses alike, ready to hear Dr Gabor Maté , hosted by Dr Ranjan Chatterjee,
Our distinct expertise in advanced generalist medicine, together with our extended experience in the community healthcare context, defines the expertise that we bring to a consultation process, argues Joanne Reeve.
We have a professional obligation to keep up to date, and our patients will hopefully take it as read that we know what we are doing. They are more likely to thank us, though, for also having taken the trouble to walk
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
The Anxious Generation documents a phenomenon which almost certainly has been recognised, tracked and pondered by all practicing GPs, whose workload consists of a substantial and growing prevalence of anxiety and depression, particularly among younger patients.
Making explicit the roles and activity of the General Practitioner has many benefits. It enables others to recognise, value and utilise our work. The acronym is GENERALISM!
Hannah Milton reflects on the neuroscience of trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and how this can lead to what is termed ‘latent vulnerability’.
The power of placebos is both a manual and a manifesto. It both a guide to the ethical use of placebos in healthcare, as well as placebos as a window into empathic, meaningful healthcare.
What are 'Ordinary' worries? Elke Hausmann reflects in the light of recent announcements by the prime minister about taking sick note prescribing away from GPs, with the argument that 'normal worries' are being wrongly medicalised as mental illness, also using that to
To be fit for work, a person must be capable of more than simply carrying out in isolation the tasks required by their role: they must be able to do so repeatedly, to a consistent standard, and in a way that represents
GPs are in the firing line of efforts to reduce sickness certification. The UK government suggest that the responsibility for issuing fit notes could be moved from GPs to specialist occupational health professionals. Nada Khan unpacks the issues.
Elke Hausmann recommends Lynn Payer's book to anyone who wants to understand the history of many of the underlying assumptions shaping medicine and our practice of it -the inevitable result of medical progress but of choices, conscious or not, that arise from
...an apparent paradox makes science possible. At least two conditions are necessary, and they appear deeply contradictory. The first is that the universe must be governed by consistent physical laws, the second is that humans in general, and scientists in particular, must
Thomas Oswald questions the speed with which physician assistants have been rolled out in primary care as a GP-alternative, and wonders why the high profile debates chiefly involve the RCP rather than the RCGP.
Richard Armitage's reading about Chalmers’ proposal of two distinct Problems (the capital is deliberate) of consciousness sparked an analogy in the domain of human health...
Will using a PPI increase my patient’s risk of dementia? I wouldn’t honestly know the answer offhand if a patient came to me asking this question clutching their newspaper. What are the tensions between the media and scientists, and the implications for
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a detailed summary of much of Kahneman’s influential work spanning numerous academic disciplines which has real-world impact across various professional and personal domains. Richard Armitage explores Its relevance to general practice.
'In medical education; those with less support needs have better training environments, while those who are most in need of support end up training in the most challenging, deprived areas.' Frances Wedgwood reflects on a plausible narrative.
As we embrace digitalisation and adapt to changing legislative frameworks, healthcare professionals must redouble their commitment to safeguarding and supporting survivors of DA. Only by aligning with the new legal framework and embracing advancements in practice can we truly meet the needs
10 years was the gap Monica Ali took between her last novel and the release of Love Marriage in 2022. Ironically, this is the same amount of time it would take to go through medical school and train to be a qualified
The Life and Time section is in fact bigger on the inside, as submissions air online and a selection are chosen for a print edition, conditional on (with apologies for the awful pun) space and theme. This month’s Life and Times focuses
...illness is something normal, to be borne while the pendulum swings that way in expectation that it will soon swing back again. Most of the time, it does, and it is easy for us to claim credit as doctors, even though we
There’s a real risk often voiced by GPs that using Google will make them look stupid in front of the patient, and while there is evidence this can happen, especially with younger patients, it’s often not as bad as we think ...
Paul was diagnosed with locally advanced cancer in 2019. Paul was under no illusion about his prognosis and from an early point he openly discussed what his future was likely to hold .He set out very clearly what was most important to
We know ambulance trusts in the UK are increasingly employing GPs, and whilst the theory is there, we wanted to explore the evidence. What follows is a summary of our discussions exploring key similarities and differences in approaches to out-of-hours (OOH) care,
Biological causality for T4 monotherapy not working for some is now established. We can’t now attribute the 10%–15% of people with hypothyroidism not feeling better on T4 as wimps, laggards, or requiring psychological attention. Sarah Cathcart Evans reflects from personal experience of