Yesterday I did not cross a picket line. I don’t yet know the figures for how many junior doctors did choose to work, aside from those who were unable to […]
Month: April 2016
Richard Smith: The deeper causes of the doctors’ strike—a thought experiment
I’m on my way to walk among bluebells, but my mind is on junior doctors engaging in a total strike, not providing even emergency care, for the first time in […]
Michelle Sinclair on the GP forward view
It’s not about the money sings Jesse J. Well yes, actually, it is. The release this week of the General Practice Forward View sounds good, doesn’t it? £2.4bn recurrent investment […]
Taryn Youngstein: “No doctor wants to strike”
Ethical dilemmas are the essences of medicine. As doctors, we frequently have to act in our patient’s best interests; when they are confused, demented, or suicidal for example. We have […]
Richard Smith: The NHS is a fiction, but what’s the story?
Ask somebody “What is the NHS?” and they are likely to answer to “The people who work in it, the buildings they work in, and the tools they use to […]
Elizabeth Wortley: Should I strike?
I am in a moral quandary, I am in a personal quandary, and I am in a professional quandary. I cannot answer the question “Should I strike?” As a doctor, I’m […]
Alice Gerth: Taking sides in the junior doctors’ strike
As a full walk out is planned for this week, juniors need to ensure that they have carefully considered which side of the picket line they will stand on. Full disclosure, […]
Junior doctors’ strike 26 – 27 April 2016: Live blog
This week, junior doctors in England will be undertaking a full withdrawal of labour between the hours of 8am and 5pm on Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 April, as the ongoing […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—25 April 2016
NEJM 21 April 2016 Vol 374 Aliskiren in Cardioland 1521 What does the R in the RAA pathway stand for? I used to pose this question in lectures several times […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . A contract or a contra-act?
So, the junior hospital doctors’ “contract” has been published, and the secretary of state for health, described in BMA documents as “SoSH”, which is also an obsolete word meaning a […]