Bet you can’t eat just one

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 13th January 2024 Recent research published in the BMJ shows that ultra-processed snacks are addictive. A goldmine for Britain’s powerful food manufacturers, but the consequences – not just obesity with all the attendant risks but tooth decay, low mood and poor concentration – are a disaster for the …

An Urgent Need

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 31 March 2024 “Zenski isn’t the gentski”. Dithering desperately outside the toilets on a Croatian railway station last year I recalled the mantra from a long-ago family holiday in Dubrovnik. That was how we remembered which toilet we should use.  At least we found a public convenience. That’s …

Sniffing Danger

First published in the NASGP Newsletter 1st November 2021 Many medical traditions use body odours as a diagnostic tool, but by the time I was a medical student diabetic ketoacidosis and renal failure were the only conditions I recall being associated with a characteristic smell. Now the odours caused by specific biochemical changes generated by …

Who’s speaking?

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 28th February 2022 Remember Billroth I and II? But Theodore Billroth wasn’t just a pioneering gastric surgeon. He successfully performed the first total laryngectomy in 1873. He was also a talented musician and a friend of Johannes Brahms, who sought his opinion on his latest compositions. Soprano Gweneth-Ann …

From Kildare to Kay

First published in the NASGP Newsletter 18th April 2022 In the early 1960s Dr Kildare represented everyone’s ideal doctor, earnestly navigating clinical and moral dilemmas under the guidance of his mentor Dr Gillespie. Not every episode had a happy ending, but good-looking Dr Kildare always ended up the wiser. And there were attempts to reflect …

Living with the Shaking Palsy

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 7th November 2022 On his last tour, before Parkinson’s led him to retire from the stage, Billy Connolly’s greeting to his audience was “Good evening, symptom spotters”. We doctors are trained to spot symptoms and inevitably we take our experience into our private life. A neurologist watching a …

Sleep Knits Up the Ravelled Sleeve of Care . . .

First published in the NASGP Newsletter 10th October 2022 How? There is a whole industry built on poor sleep, but the key to understanding it lies in the circadian rhythms which govern all of life. As a junior doctor, I trudged through post-take ward rounds, longing to climb into bed alongside any of the patients, …

Even Can-kickers Need a Road Map

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 25th January 2023 “Falling ill made me realise the true wonder of the NHS.” So said media medic Dr Xand van Tulleken. Many voters in need of treatment feel the same. So, it’s a view to which most politicians subscribe. But they are reluctant to face up to …

The Museum of Broken Relationships

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 6th March 2023 Have you ever entered a diagnosis of takotsubo cardiomyopathy* in a patient’s notes? It’s the ICD code for broken heart syndrome. The cardiomyopathy is temporary, but the emotional effects of a break-up can last a lifetime. When a relationship has come to an end, what …

The Nitty Gritty

First published in the NASGP Newsletter on 22nd May 2023 Sometime around 3,500 years ago, someone living in Canaan inscribed the first known sentence in the written history of the world. Not a proverb, not an aphorism. Not the Ten Commandments. The earliest message that has come down to us through the generations was scratched …

It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over

First published in the NASGP Newsletter 26th June 2023 Photo by Carolyn Brown On 5 May 2023 the World Health Organisation declared that Covid-19 was no longer a ‘public health emergency of international concern’. The same day our local convenience store took down the plastic screen which for three years had separated staff and customers. …