It’s sometimes tricky to move one’s mind from treating the acutely unwell child, or caring for those with palliative needs, or fixing referrals to a series of health and social care colleagues and think about how we encourage people to ‘do the right thing’ in the NHS. As our previous blog explored, management is a […]
Category: practice of medicine
Guest post: 5 rules parents wish we followed
There’s nothing that necessarily makes parents better paediatricians, or paediatricians better parents, but it’s true that experiencing different stuff can be a great teaching experience … And our guest blogger Lucinda Winckworth is giving is five great tips from experience on the other side of the baby gro… Since having my children I have experienced both […]
Networking in academia, where will it take you?
“Without Fleming, no Chain; without Chain, no Florey; without Florey, no Heatley; without Heatley, no penicillin.” Ask people about the discovery of penicillin and the majority picture Alexander Fleming making his momentous breakthrough alone, in his laboratory with only a petri dish of mould for company. The reality of course was much much […]
Should we stand up for parity of esteem wherever we see it?
We have worried on here about parity of esteem between physical and mental ill health previously, and there’s a generally increasing feel that we health types should be whistleblowers when we see foul play. So if we see an example of mental ill health being treated poorly in comparable to physical illness, should we be blowing a whistle on […]
Why, what do you mean when you ask “Why?” ?
That’s not the right question. Well. It might be the right question, but the answer might be right but differently wrong in all sorts of ways. When parents ask – “Why has A got poorly with Ulcerative Colitis/sepsis?” – the answer might be Because humans are complicated things and sometimes break down Because the bacteria that invaded […]
A grain of sand.
I am a glutton for podcasts, occasionally medical, but often way off this mark (sociology, philosophy & rugby league would fall into this category), yet they frequently play into each other. Some of you will recall this, as I note that when I can’t concentrate on a podcast, I know I’m becoming overloaded/over worried and need to step […]
How can we share treatment decisions?
I guess part of me wants to start this blog with “Never knowingly topical”, but in the UK an as yet unclear explosion of media interest has been generated around decision making and a child with a brain tumour. Those who want to can find out more via reputable news sites – as a staunch […]
Words, listening, and the art of applying the general to the specific
A little bit of a swirl around a decade-old paper by @iona_heath on the trouble with turning a patient’s experience into something that might require medically fixing that was floated about twitter recently. The paper, which is densely written and has lots of lovely quotes from proper writers, and speak of many aspects of doctoring, holds to a […]
Parity of esteem
Lots of my clinical work, with children and young people with cancer, requires the team I work with to understand physical and psychological elements of a young person, and their family’s, health. I also know, mainly from working groups and Twitter, that there is a statutory requirement to work to parity of esteem for […]
Time to rename the terrible twos?
There are many phrasings which make me wince. Some of them are obviously pedantry – I inherited a dislike of the phrase “septic screen” from Peter Daish, preferring the more correct “sepsis screen”. Folks who have worked with me could probably list another dozen easy ways to press my buttons. A more recent phrase which […]