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
A number of storylines within the Star Trek franchise refer to a combat simulation in which a stranded starship, the Kobayashi Maru, must be rescued, but in which any attempt to do so inevitably results in failure. Ben Hoban can relate...
I had progressed from A-Levels into becoming a GP... without pausing for breath - or allowing time for the aspect of my professional practice I enjoyed the most; teaching. But not clinical or consultation skills; instead, anatomy.
A wise piece of advice helped enormously. “You don’t have to solve every problem in a single consultation,” advised my father.
The 'deluxe' breakfast came with half a mushroom, and this was unexpectedly upsetting. The menu had boasted ‘a portobello mushroom’ and the absent half felt fraudulent, stolen even.
"Our calcified medical models eventually crumble with the metastasis of authenticity. There are consequences if you want to be a good doctor. This is the game I play and I have accepted the rules. How pathogenic of me." Sati Heer-Stavert shares an
The recent release of “Queen Charlotte”, the Bridgerton spin-off series on Netflix, has reignited interest in the illness of King George III. Whilst the series is described as ‘fiction inspired by fact,’ the story of King George leads into the wider
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
“And yet you followed them anyway,” replied Med AI Assistant version 3.0, or Maeve, as Raymond called her, or rather, it (he had to remember to stop anthropomorphising her, it!). “With a 100% concordance rate,” Maeve added in a light feminine voice
My heart goes out to all of us, who have been 'set up to fail'. Take heart and glove up - the work must go on... A poem by Rebecca Quinn
The place of Medicine in our imagined future, science fiction, tends to be defined by technology. As in science fiction, so in medicine there is a constant tension between the technological and the human, what is possible and what is desirable.
Sharing my humanity with your humanity, in snapshots, journeying together over a lifetime. That is the essence of the general practice that I know, love and hate simultaneously. Kathleen Wenaden reflects...
I always walk home from work. It gets me moving after 10 hours of mostly sitting in other people’s heads. My walk home is an oasis of no small talk, no confusion, no hidden agendas...
Careful, caring and person-centred application of guidance is required to ensure patients benefit from, and are not harmed by, healthcare. I’d like to talk about Joan, an 86-year-old lady who had rarely visited the surgery. We threw the guidelines at her...
...After a long day being your child’s GP, I come home. I get a few tantrums, followed by a cuddle 10 minutes later. I am a mum, just like you.
Are GP practices equipped to respond to the current mental health crisis? Here, Jonathan Coates and Nick Hartley reflect on a recent pilot of the role of GP clinical psychologists in primary care - "an experienced, senior clinician independently handling undifferentiated presentations
Dr Somebody* is a fictional late middle aged, mild to moderately burnout GP Partner in North London; he is suspicious about the current managerial changes in the NHS; his motto however is "contented with little, yet wishing for more", and at heart
My parents being immigrants, enforced into us to keep our heads down and work hard, to adopt a ‘don’t cause trouble’ attitude... Being called these occasional names I still performed well academically at school, it never placed limits. Life was good …
...it wasn’t until I became sick myself that I really understood what it meant to be a patient, or indeed those wider principles I tried to root my own practice in. For me, that once watertight seal between clinician and clinic was
What is my take on carers? They deny they need a medal for what they do. I now have the awareness and the greatest respect for these unsung heroes. For me. I will continue to care for Mavis, to do whatever I
Newshound: Thanks for agreeing to see me, doctor…
Subject: John, it's just John these days. I appreciate your making the trip. Did anyone try to stop you?
(Dystopian satire from Ben Hoban)
We shared four YouTube links to commercials from department stores and supermarkets of Christmas past and present –We asked all the group to view all of the short films in advance and then discussed them with members taking it in turns to
These are five small 'stocking-filler' books that you might see in a bookshop or a charity shop. They are all short and readable, and small enough to fit into most Christmas stockings. They all importantly have some inspiration and wisdom with which
My love for those who could not help themselves was fuelled by passion,
As medicine became my way of helping them with care and compassion.
A few minutes when they were outside, they started hearing the sounds of police cars and sirens and a loud deep droning noise, like a distant thunder, with the police obviously making their way to the ICAC... But it was too late
Gareth came round with the checklist and electronic timesheet and held the face scanner in front of each of their faces in turn to register their arrival... speculative fiction by Georgia Avon (Part 2)
Doctors are inordinately fond of nouns. By and large, patients come to us not just with nouns, but with stories which include them but are driven along by verbs, words of action, backed up by adverbs, pronouns, and so on...
...the term GP, she remembered that had previously existed, had been changed to IHP – Integrated Health Practitioner - in 2026 by the RCPHP... speculative fiction by Georgia Avon (Part 1)
Tom Brett had known Martha as a patient for fifteen years. Widowed for over 25 years, she had moved from the family farm to settle in the city close to her children...
So anyway, I left by the COVID door under cover of a virtual PCN meeting, figuring that by the time anyone noticed the urine samples building up at reception I’d be long gone. I’d heard of a guy with the kind of
Alexandre Dumas’s 19th century French novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, doesn’t usually make the list of standard medical texts but perhaps it should not be so readily dismissed. It captures the spirit of an age when medicine was undergoing a revolution...
Serena Strickland reflects on the effect of an avian visitor on a GP practice
‘Yes dad, a little dash like normal.’ I never knew how to reply. Was he asking a question? Was he just making a statement, did he even want milk in it? Had he forgotten how he had his tea? I never knew
The waves of nausea as I lay in the hotel bed were incessant. Away on a long-planned holiday to New York with my partner, the morning sickness had hit at week 6 of my pregnancy ...
You and I may observe the same event but give different accounts based on our own understanding of what we’ve seen, influenced by how we felt, our past experiences and values. Ben Hoban discusses storytelling as a clinical phenomenon.
Ben Hoban reflects on general practice as a 'Hero's journey,' but argues that this must be reconciled with the patient narrative. Don your narrative bifocals!