For the first time in more than a decade I’m skipping Edinburgh in August with its international, fringe, and book festivals. It seemed like a good idea at the time. […]
Editors at large
Tessa Richards: “Therapeutic relationships”—prized but hard to deliver
I hate to think of what I’ve cost the NHS since I was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. This year alone I’d need to factor in 12 outpatient appointments, seven […]
Deborah Kirkham: Mind the technology gap—how can the NHS bridge it?
I find the exhibition halls at conferences fascinating. They provide an interface between private and public sector which many clinicians are not exposed to in their day to day work. […]
Rosamund Snow: What makes a real patient?
A few years ago I applied for a grant to study my own long term condition. I started out as Ms Snow, ashamed of saying the name of my disease, […]
Fiona Godlee: My biggest career failure
Like most of us, I have known failure. I tried to get into Cambridge to do preclinical medicine from sixth form—twice: once in my fourth term and again in my […]
Tessa Richards: N-of-1 research
Wimbledon is over (well done Andy Murray), but London still has a wealth of other treats to offer. A trip to the Science Museum, for example, where the Beyond the […]
David Payne: Time to pause Scotland’s “Named Person” policy
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” Was Philip Larkin right, and if so, are state-funded parenting classes the answer? Or […]
David Payne: “Bed blocking” is an offensive term
Simon Stevens, head of the NHS in England, has warned MPs that delays in releasing older patients from hospital could continue for up to five years because of social care […]
David Payne: Do we still need hospitals (and hospital beds)?
During a conference coffee break last week two physiotherapists pushed a hospital bed through the networking area, along with a wheelie bin overflowing with “redundant” bed-related paraphernalia—monitors, clipboards, etc. The […]
Birte Twisselmann: “It is not your fault”: 4.48 Psychosis—the opera
In the same month in which British journalist Sally Brampton died at age 60 after purportedly walking into the sea near her home on England’s south coast after decades of […]