Speed and compassion – the necessary juxtaposition

  Should a doctor feel guilty, or be criticised, if a patient walks into the consulting room and leaves four minutes later? (I think my record is two, if I am honest.) If I see a patient on a ward round and spend no more than three minutes by the bed, I do ask myself...

Destroyer of the faith

  A patient came to clinic with a sheaf of papers. In the four months since his last appointment he had researched the subject of allergies, found a private clinic and submitted himself to the most unconventional series of tests. The clinic sent him a long list of foods and substances to which he was...

In praise of the hole punch

I once worked with a consultant who had worked with a consultant who, I was told, used to take patients’ case notes and dangle them by the spine. He would look disdainfully at the loose sheets of paper that fell to the floor and walk away muttering, ‘File them!’ Terribly arrogant, but I can see...