I like to read “A Patient’s Journey” in the BMJ, and a recent offering was of special interest for my wife and me. It described a patient’s experience of Lyme neuroborreliosis. Lyme disease is unusual, particularly if you live in Manchester, and as a result it is not high up on the list of differential diagnoses. It produces odd symptoms that, even when diagnosed and treated, take forever to resolve.

My wife and I had recently spent about a year and a half in Uganda without catching any tropical diseases, but then my wife started to feel unwell about nine months after our return. more…

I suppose I could be accused of banging on too much about doctors volunteering at the end of their career. But now I have another reason.

At my age, I thought the days of national and international meetings were long gone. So, what a surprise to find myself at the Hilton on Park Lane with my wife in a lovely new dress and about 500 of the great and good in medicine, for one of the best evenings of my life. more…

There is increasing evidence that for cultural reasons, women are unlikely to use condoms if their family planning method was satisfied through a long acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) and that women were more likely to have concurrent partners if the risk of pregnancy was so effectively removed with a LARC. more…

Working as a doctor in Northern Uganda I wonder where to start with healthcare. Since 75% of diseases in Uganda are preventable and since there are very few health workers and little money, especially in a country which is so Kampalacentric, one probably has to follow the government’s prevention line. more…

Sitting here pondering as a VSO doctor in Uganda I wonder all the time is the aid money to Africa well spent. Uganda gets £70m from the Department for International Development (DFID) and Africa gets about £1.2 billion. I feel some of it could be spent differently. more…

What to do when you are a sexagenarian physician who has retired from hospital practice with 40 years in the NHS under your belt and golf/Sudoku not really appealing? Well, my health visitor wife and I applied to Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and I am writing this from a hospital in Kampala, Uganda, where I have been working for five months. more…