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
Giles Dawnay captures the transition of autumn to winter in a poem about cancer.
The idea was simple: a short walk in the park to clear our heads, engage in light-hearted conversation, and bond with colleagues. Over the years, this practice has not only endured but flourished...
"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."
...none of this stuff is difficult if you keep in shape and know what you’re doing ... Bosco felt like she had been running her whole life, one way or another, and you might just as well have asked her to stop
Identifying the mind as a source of the body's pain can help a patient make great strides towards taking control of their health and reducing the impact chronic illness has on their day to day lives. Paul McNamara and Ella Butterworth explore
What (if anything) happens when we die? This is a question that human beings have been pondering since time immemorial. Paul McNamara and Craig MacKay reflect on a family story of near death experience.
My first go at introducing stories into my own teaching was through the work of Rita Charon. But when I tried to introduce some of these concepts to my teaching, I was less successful. Family therapist and GP John Launer offers an
When does a GP attend a patient’s funeral? Emma Ladds writes about how it is such a privilege to be a family doctor, and about grief when losing a patient.
Appeals to tradition represent a desire to preserve the evanescent, to build a clear narrative that tells us who we are and how we should go about things, even if its historical basis is shaky. We project our thinking onto ... general
The Wild West of medicine - a history for doctors’ feels like a more honest title for a book that makes interesting and informative reading.
Sophy Wollaston offers a lyrical journey from doctor to patient and from community to hospital... and back again
"Health is whatever helps me to travel hopefully within and between my story-strands." Paul Thomas describes this as Community-Oriented Integrated Practice (COIP) – a way of thinking & acting that facilitates local collaboration for health and care.
In Japan, there is a saying that deities disguise themselves as difficulties and offer trials to those who have true courage and strength. My supervisors taught me that when we are overwhelmed and troubled by complex problems, we should respond with sincerity
The practice of silencing is unjust and unfair, but probably universal in medicine. Trisha Greenhalgh reflects on a 'powerful' new book that is packed with compelling patient stories and accessible summaries of the academic literature. And for the teachers and trainers among
Can't sleep unless I've had a skinful... his ruddy face flickers. Oscillating fast... between the big man not allowed to cry... and the little boy who chose to survive.
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.
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
Establishing general practice first as an independent subject or specialism, and then as a university discipline has been a major challenge over many decades. Where we are at present doesn’t appear to be working. Howie, Freeman, and heath reflect on what we
General Practice or Primary Care. What is the difference? Howie, Freeman and Heath discuss the development of primary care research and education and the the rise of SAPC in 2000.
...At last GPs could receive direct reimbursement from the NHS for time taken for teaching, allowing accelerating expansion of clinical placements in General Practice. At the same time there was NHS support for additional clinical academic staff in the Departments allowing research
John Howie, George Freeman and Heather Heath introduce an archive that traces the development of General Practice as a university-based academic discipline in the UK
There’s much to be said for novellas – short novels you can read in a couple of evenings, without the commitment needed for a blockbuster. If you’re looking for a great example, I’d recommend The Shooting Party by the Russian dramatist Anton
'It has been a hard week.' Poetry by Terese Tubman
The greatest challenge was a general practice one: not making a definitive diagnosis but to triage, having to decide what was safe to watch and wait, what could be managed with resources onboard the ship, what needed to be seen on land,
"What Nicky Winton had once done was save the lives of 669 children, for whom he arranged air and rail journeys to the UK after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. As it happens, one of the children he saved was my
I’m running late, the daily mantra of a working GP ... I’m running late, not an uncommon sight to see ... I’m running late, stuck behind a tractor on my commute ... I’m running late, the laptop has some updates to compute.
Lavina Sakhrani-Clarke learns how to be ill and the importance of recovery.
...cognitive bias sustained public faith in the medical profession long before doctors had the tools to truly alter the course of an illness. These forces did not disappear the moment that working therapeutics arrived - meaning we remain enthralled by own salves
‘Wherefore’, meaning ‘For what reason’, is one of the most fundamental questions we must ask in medicine. Tasneem Khan applies this idea to trauma-informed care.
“Do we have a deal?” A haunting tale from Ben Hoban
In a world of immediacy and impermanence, my two cards and lonely box of chocolates earn a particular significance. They emphasise the humanity that is still possible in General Practice despite the need to count, measure, and capture everything – a connection
‘The doctor wants you to come back to discuss your results’. That’s what the receptionist said when she called me. ‘Can you tell me anything more?’ I asked, my body instantly awash with bilious panic. ‘No, sorry’ she said, before scheduling the
In a parallel reality, and in a distant multiverse and metaverse, BJGP Life has, in a Christmas charity raffle won a chance to interview Schrodinger’s Prime Minister (PM) a self confessed Artificial Intelligence (AI) nerd himself, the Right Hon Richard Turpin.
"It was 1981. As a GP trainee I walked into the Automobile Association shop in Brighton and saw a cheap, yellow, elegant polypropylene car tyre foot pump. I realised that this would be ideal when attached to a nebuliser unit for asthma
I remember the early days when I wanted to transition. Before I could be referred to a gender clinic, I was required to see a psychiatrist to be assessed that I did not have a mental illness. I refused to see a
Naomi Craft and Sue Morrison trained in end of life coaching in 2015, delivering workshops between 2016 and 2020 exploring loss, mortality, and the self in both personal and healthcare contexts. Here, they describe the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the
Kathleen Wenaden looks back at the struggles and successes of her Hackney practice, and of how the work of the staff interweaves with the lives of the patients. She considers too the reinvigorating power of creativity and nature as ways for GPs
I don’t know the answer. But I think I’m feeling the same. I’m exhausted, but I won’t tell you that. It’s a conveyor-belt of emotions. Next customer please! Except this is not transactional. You have a story, and it’s my job to
"The function of a diagnosis is more than to guide treatment planning. It often provides emotional relief for patients, even if the diagnosis is dire. As Susan put it, “I keep hoping that some doctor will tell me exactly what this ‘skin