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Opinion - Page 5

Why face-to-face still saves lives

Remote consulting is excellent for repeat prescriptions, routine results, straightforward infections in the young and well, and selected mental health follow-ups. But general practice is not primarily populated by the young and well..
15 December 2025
2 mins read
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Stories and medical records

"... we’re in a situation where we understand the importance of patient narratives, but if we talk about this in these terms to policymakers and even some of our specialist colleagues, we’ll be dismissed as chin-stroking hippies, unable to do proper medicine."
10 January 2025
2 mins read
2
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Irresistible and immovable values

The thread that runs through the debate, however, seems to be a genuine desire on both sides to help people who are suffering, and the conflict between opposing views reflects not a greater or lesser degree of care, but rather the familiar
8 January 2025
4 mins read
2
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GPs and assisted dying

GPs have a duty to be well-informed about the issues regardless of whether we are conscientiously pro, anti, or neutral. We anticipate publishing many articles around this topic, and the specifics of the bill, and we welcome the opportunity to ensure primary
3 January 2025
3 mins read

Win the crowd (Maximus)

Luke Sayers reflects on what the movie 'Gladiator' has to teach General Practice. We must win the crowd... before it's too late.
31 December 2024
3 mins read
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Kez and the system

Kez has an embarrassing problem. He has tried a cream that maybe worked in the past but not now. He needs the doctor, he thinks. He rings the surgery...
30 December 2024
2 mins read
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Overcoming the Monster

How we understand our story makes a difference to how we go about the job, how effectively we do it, and how it leaves us feeling when we go home... One of these proto-narratives is especially relevant to us as doctors: Overcoming
17 December 2024
3 mins read
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Rebalancing Medicine by Neal Maskrey

Rebalancing Medicine can seem an impossible task. This book describes, often from personal experience, how the political fashions of the last decades first facilitated and then debilitated the essential workings of the NHS. Richard Lehman reviews.
14 December 2024
4 mins read

General Practice – time for an upgrade!

There is no doubt that general practice now is very different in almost every way compared to 20 years ago. But has enough been done over this period to ensure its longevity as a profession? Sarah Rishi makes the case for a
13 December 2024
3 mins read

Just a thought

Mike Thirlwall fears that patients and family doctors may be steadily drifting apart and something very precious may be lost for ever.
10 December 2024
3 mins read
1
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A brief vulnerability

"For the first time for many years I felt that I had lost control. Suddenly my comfortable Western privilege wasn’t working. I felt stranded, helpless, a powerless fragment of a distressed and angry crowd."
2 December 2024
3 mins read
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For Who Do You Serve?

For my attention is elsewhere... Occupied by a mere digital abstraction... The computer between us acting as a physical metaphor... A poem by Callum Leese
28 November 2024
1 min read
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Turning the tide on healthy eating

Despite regular reports about ‘improving the diet of the population’, little has changed. Eight years ago less than a third of people ate five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and that figure hasn’t budged since. Chris Newman suggests that GPs
7 November 2024
4 mins read
4
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Narrative and Numbers

We walk a tightrope in medicine, balancing every day the unique and complex needs of individual patients with the standardised requirements of the rule-book that governs their care. There is danger in tipping too far in either direction. Ben Hoban makes us
24 October 2024
4 mins read
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