Category archives: Judith

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in February, 2020 This was written at the end of January 2020. Since then Covid-19 has trumped almost every other medical challenge, but in the future we will need effective antibiotics all the more. In his Nobel prize acceptance speech Alexander Fleming sounded a note of warning. He had […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in October, 2019 Social prescribing transforms 21st century lives A partner in a North London practice was feeling burned out. The crushing target-chasing workload was no longer offset by the reward of helping patients. The BNF had no remedy for the distresses of modern life which patients were bringing […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in August 2019 Noisy environments aren’t a new phenomenon, but we are only now recognising how noise endangers our health. The Royal Opera House orchestra was rehearsing Die Walküre. For more than three hours violist Chris Goldscheider sat in front of twenty brass players belting out Wagner at 90dB. […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in February 2018 Whacking moles may make you feel you are doing something, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Last year the malware WannaCry attacked IT systems worldwide. Microsoft wasn’t making any more money from their hugely successful Windows XP so to encourage sales of a new operating system […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in April 2019 When words fail, music may find a way into a failing brain London’s Wigmore Hall is a temple of high culture. The audience is packed with musicians. Sometimes I feel I’m the only person who couldn’t be up there performing the work. But recently I joined […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in June 2019 A century after Semmelweis published his paper on reducing the spread of infection in maternity wards, his advice reached the Department of Health. In post-war Italy TB was still rife and notices in buses commanded “No Spitting”. In Britain in 1946 the message “Coughs and sneezes […]

First published: in the NASGP Newsletter in April 2018 The UK is losing the ‘war on drugs’. We might learn from Colombia as it recovers from decades of violence brought about by its illegal manufacture and export of cocaine. Twenty-five years ago Medellín in Colombia was the murder capital of the world. The city was […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in June 2018 What can public health in UK learn from the Faroese tradition of whaling about changing cultural traditions? The Islands and the Whales is a documentary by lawyer-turned-filmmaker Mike Day. It isn’t simply about whaling in the Faroe Islands. It’s an exploration of the practical and emotional obstacles […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in September 2018 Since the antihypertensive captopril went on the market in 1981 captopril has probably saved many more lives than have been lost to the venom of pit vipers from which it was derived. I’ve watched snake charmers capitalising on our fear of snakes, and I have observed […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in October 2018 Medics have a long-standing relationship with the annual August circus that is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Medical students reprise their pantomimes as reviews. Specialty registrars mine their store of horror stories to test whether a career in theatrical stand-up would be more rewarding than a career […]

First published in the NASGP Newsletter in February 2019 Recently, in Tromsø, the Arctic capital of Norway, I came across the name Carleton Gajdusek. That name took me back many years and halfway round the globe to a village in the Fore district of Papua New Guinea. A man is standing in the doorway of […]