An exhibition of recent work by artist David Marron opened recently at GV Art Gallery in London, writes Marina Wallace, curator of the exhibition. A catalogue, containing the writings of the artist, accompanies the show. Having installed his work, and having been present at the private view and the following days’ encounters with critics, journalists, and interested parties, David Marron returned to his shifts as a paramedic, working on an ambulance in London. more…

I am fortunate enough to count Professor Jonathan Glover, a world renowned medical ethicist, amongst my former teachers. A very modest and thoughtful man, Jonathan Glover spent a number of years writing a similarly thoughtful book in which he tries to understand what he terms man’s inhumanity to man (Humanity: a Moral History of the Twentieth Century. Pimlico, London 2001). His starting premise is that, given the wrong circumstances, we are all capable of doing evil things to other human beings. At the heart of his efforts are a desire to understand, for all our sakes, what it  has taken in the past, and by extension what it would take in the future, for people- just like you and me- to be willing to take part in our own equivalent of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

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I’ve spent the last few weeks saying goodbye to my patients, letting them know, that after eight years, I will no longer be their GP. I don’t tell every patient I see, but instead restrict myself to telling those with whose care I’ve been more intimately involved in and those whom I’m advising to come back for follow up, knowing full well that I won’t be around to provide it. It needs to be done and I want to be the one to do it, but- as any GP could tell you- it hasn’t been easy.

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According to UNESCO there are 111 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases among people ages 10 to 24 globally each year. In addition, 4.4 million women age 15 to 19 seek abortions each year. As part of their on-going programme to try to improve this situation, and with a strong focus on trying to reduce HIV transmission, UNESCO is in the process of formulating Sex and Relationship Education guidelines that they hope will make the task of helping the world’s young people to make informed decisions. A welcome and much needed contribution? Sadly, not everyone thinks so. more…

This one day conference is the brainchild of Dr Sam Guglani, a clinical oncologist who specialises in the treatment of patients with breast, lung and brain cancers. You might think this would be enough to keep him busy, but working with people at such a vulnerable and formative time in their lives has clearly left him wondering how to best understand and encapsulate all the things his patients have taught him and that so rarely appear in medical textbooks and research papers. more…

Coming up soon, the organisers of this conference, ‘Thinking about Health’, promise a different kind of conference: small, participative, interdisciplinary, and aimed at users, professionals and academics. It will explore the changing nature of roles and relationships in the NHS and their implications, focussing on the implications of change for the integrity and identity of individuals, professions and organisations.

The conference aims to address questions like does integrity mean anything in the contemporary NHS; is the nature of integrity, individual and corporate, changing; and how can integrity be exemplified and encouraged by policy makers, professionals and users?

Alongside plenary presentations, there will be structured, small group discussions and short contributions by practitioners and users to ensure discussion is earthed in the everyday life of the NHS. A final plenary will draw together the issues discussed, with a panel of leaders from academic disciplines and health care professions.

This is the third event organised by Think About Health. For more about the network see www.thinkabouthealth.org

To join Think About Health or to learn more about the conference contact J Calinas: jcalinas@thinkabouthealth.org

There are always, within the population, individuals who have no one to collect medicines for them when they are ill. The group predominantly affected are the elderly but, especially in a situation in which a significant proportion of the population is affected by a flu pandemic, there will be others. In normal circumstances we have a tried and trusted system of asking local pharmacies to deliver medications, including emergency medications, to people’s homes. more…

There’s an old adage in medicine that if being with a patient makes you feel depressed then there’s a good chance that person is themselves depressed. So how does this painting make you feel? Depressed, or hopeful? Safe, or vulnerable? Alone, or observed? more…

Over the weekend, mixed with the harrowing coverage of the loss of soldiers’ lives in Afghanistan, and for news cycle reasons I’ve inadequate information to understand, the fate of London’s homeless population prior to the 2012 Olympics was discussed on television and in print. The organising committee of the London Games had apparently committed itself to ensuring that no one would be sleeping rough on London’s streets by the time the world’s elite athletes arrived. The question of the weekend was whether this goal would be achieved and at what price, both economic and in terms of human dignity. more…

If you want to refresh your memory of the comings and goings in Geroge Eliot’s classic, Middlemarch, then look no further than Professor Rosin’s analysis in the June 2009 issue of Medical Humanities.

http://mh.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/35/1/43?q=w_mh_current_tab

If you want to follow a contemporary equivalent of medical marketplace machinations then you need look no further than what is currently happening to general practice in England and Wales. And specifically to the Orwellian world in which carers and cared for find themselves. A world where government announcements to the national news media of the universal introduction of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are followed by the systematic reduction of mental health care services in primary care. In my own practice, in the past 6 months, first the PCT provided mental health care worker was removed and more recently the practice counsellor of 17 years standing was ‘let go’. But hey ho, never mind, NICE guidance has after all told us what to do: if a patient is suitable for CBT and it isn’t available (!) we can (and should) tell them to ‘hang on’. more…