More than a ship’s surgeon: William Anderson

William Anderson was born 28th December 1750. Although he attended Edinburgh University, he qualified at Surgeon’s Hall in London in 1770. In 1772 he joined Captain James Cook on his second voyage as surgeon’s mate on HMS Resolution. Learning objectives 1. Find out more about William Anderson 2. Explore the transferrable skills of clinicians 3. […]

Ways of seeing: healthcare edition

In his book Ways of Seeing, John Berger uses the medium of pictorial essays to make the reader think. Similarly, this post contains only images but is intended to raise questions and stimulate reflection as much as any of my other posts. Learning objectives 1. Consider what questions arise from viewing the images below 2. […]

Can I cremate that? Burning questions about medical implants and their ultimate fate

When a patient dies, some people might assume that the duty of the doctor has ended. However, the doctor may have to consider the needs of any family, friends or carers in terms of understanding the death and bereavement process. The doctor may also have to complete a death certificate. As part of the funeral […]

The medical student or the optimist: the best of all possible chocolate biscuits and how suffering in healthcare became normal

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever experienced as a doctor? Has anything in the world of healthcare come as a total shock? Do you question if things could be made better or does everything happen for a reason as part of some divine masterplan? Candide: or, The Optimist is a satirical work written by Voltaire […]

Injury time

The 2018 FIFA World Cup is nearly upon us. It is a hive of international intermingling seemingly making it a perfect place for the dissemination of communicable disease, be it the classically cited sexually transmitted kind, the exotic Dengue kind, or the new and emerging Zika virus kind. But what about the vast majority of […]

A picture of health

“The effect of beautiful objects, of variety of objects and especially of brilliance of colour is hardly at all appreciated… I have seen in fevers (and felt, when I was a fever patient myself) the most acute suffering produced from the patient not being able to see out of a window and the knots in […]

The waiting room exercise

The patient waiting room can be an insightful area to learn more about how a GP practice or outpatient department work. It also allows an opportunity for members of the clinical team to gain some understanding of the waiting experience from a patient perspective (or perhaps Jerry Seinfeld’s perspective). The waiting room exercise is sometimes […]

telomerACE: A revolutionary non-surgical treatment for ageing

Age has been clinically proven to be the leading cause of death in developed societies. Medical science has now found a non-surgical answer that has been decades in development. Using cutting-edge techniques, telomerACE acts on the body’s own natural ageing mechanisms to protect against chromosome damage and keeps you staying younger for longer. telomerACE […]

Medical jousting and the art of uncourtly clinical criticism: A noble name for an ignoble activity

[SIGH/FROWN/ROLLING EYES/SHAKING OF HEAD DISAPPROVINGLY…] “Oh dear, you know your previous doctor should never have allowed things to get this bad. Why weren’t you referred to me sooner? What on earth were they thinking when they prescribed you this medication? They probably didn’t even send you for an x-ray. Did they even go to medical […]

Herbert West-Reanimator. A promethean figure of disgust or a modern day master of medicine?

What would happen if medical science could reanimate the dead? Learning objectives 1. Introduce the fictional character of Herbert West 2. Participate in a thought experiment about resuscitation 3. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn Herbert West-Reanimator is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft between 1921-1922. Published serially over six episodes in 1985 it […]