Medcast news and blog
Team GP – why we need to learn together
Learning is all about making some sort of change. As GPs, it can be easy for us to think of our learning simply as a process we go through to tick a box. But maybe we should be thinking more deeply about the types of learning that truly cause us to change for the better?
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Sundeep, a 63 year old office worker, presents with intermittent nagging loin pain and achy muscles.
The Stop Before You Block (SB4YB) initiative is a patient safety campaign designed to help reduce the risk of inadvertent wrong-sided anaesthetic blocks.
This year I’ve decided to practice what I preach. I’m starting with something that has evolved from last year’s eye-opening experience with keeping a gratitude diary when, along with other members of my team at work, I participated in the 6-week Mental Fitness Challenge on the BiteBack website. BiteBack is a positive psychology-based website for ad
Where are we with vaping? Are e-cigarettes the shining knight who will rid the world of cigarettes or dangerous products wrapped up in clever marketing with the 'unintended consequence' of luring young people into the world of smoking?
I had an interesting experience at my GP recently. I don’t go to the GP very often. Mostly I don’t get sick. Sometimes I treat my own ills or just soldier on. On the few occasions that I have been to see someone about something concerning me, my overwhelming experience has been of being judged and dismissed. I feel that they think that, as a doctor, I should have not only made the diagnosis but also treated myself. In fact, I should have been better way before I thought to come along!
I talk to a lot of health professionals and it amazes me how often people look at me blankly when I introduce the subject of self-soothing activities. As the conversation progresses I can see most of the blank looks turn to some degree of understanding as they begin to acknowledge the familiarity of the concept in their own lives, but GPs in particular are not generally familiar with the fact that teaching people about emotional management strategies is a core part of therapy, and an intervention that is entirely available to them in general practice.
I’ve been asked this question twice in the last month. Once by a 70 year old patient who has taken up smoking weed to control her neuropathic pain, let’s call her ‘Rachel’. And the other a young man aged 26 (Sean) who is smoking cannabis to help control his chronic anxiety.
The move to standardise emergency numbers within hospitals, to make them similar to the standardised emergency numbers that are utilised in the community setting, is gaining momentum.
Stan, aged 80, comes to see you with left side abdominal pain and a low-grade fever. This is a classic example of a common problem doctors face in General Practice. In our Podcast we discuss Diagnosis, Assessment, Management & Referral.