1.5 million stars. Wow Have you ever looked up to the sky at night and waited for the billions of stars to slowly emerge through wisps of dark cloud? Have you ever just stood or lay there, wondering where all these stars have come from, how old they all are, where they were created, and…
How to be a Superhero
As healthcare staff, we’re not in the job to save the world, just so that we can become superheroes. Nor do we want to be seen as superheroes every time we save the world. In fact, most of us aren’t even on that quest to save the world – nor save lives, incidentally enough. We’re…
The Language of Medicine – How Narratives can shape our Career Experience
Many of us working in the healthcare sector often find ourselves clinging on a cliff-edge. Many will again, find themselves creeping towards that same cliff-edge, time and time again, as our shifts get longer, we become more overworked, the system becomes more corrupt. And many, have already tumbled that cliff-edge, both literally and metaphorically speaking. …
Delirious
Entombed, I lay rigidly infixed in coils of bubble-wrap, ice-cold. A frollick of strange lights darted in bullets of pink and blue above me, until they all blurred into one infinite line, fogs of white splaying out. I was strapped into the hold of a Boeing 777. They had given me a special mask to…
A letter to all the Women in my life
To all the wondrous, powerful, inspiring and loving women in my life, It’s because of you all that I am here now, being who I am, being what I want to be, with all the happiness, strength and pride you taught me to have, as we all continue discovering ourselves. On International Women’s Day 2019,…
The 5 Secrets of Resilience
Nowadays, it is so easy to fall into a mousetrap that is governed so much by what everyone else around you is doing, and what they expect of you. Politics, finances, staff shortages, body image, social media – the combination of pressures has simply become a norm – the modern-day rat-race. Yet, not everyone is…
The Hospital Curriculum through the eyes of a Medical Student – A Message to Mentors and Doctors
Being the interchanging medical student that I am, I am frustratingly back in hospital as the impatient inpatient again. Another morning ward-round has just been and gone, and I’ve witnessed yet another bunch of thumb-twiddling medical students shuffle silently behind the lead Consultant. Not once does the doctor break their own dialogue to ensure his…
The ‘Big S’ – The Lesson that changed my Life
They’ve always had that saying, “doctors are the worst patients”. Even I’ve said it many times before, nervously dousing in a feathery laugh as I try to throw in a light-heartedly sarcastic joke, the attending doctor glaring round at me with an expressionless smile. Truth is, medical students are too. Nurses. HCAs. Physiotherapists. In fact,…
The Secrets to Making the Most of Every Day, through Sickness and Health
Paper folded over the crease of the clipboard, we file on into the side-room, the smell of thick phlegm and night-breath hovering in the stuffy bay. A gentleman, middle-aged, thick, strong, dark tufts of hair sticking up greasily behind the steamy mask of the nebuliser. He is pale, yellow, and famished, his calf muscles withered…
The Wonders of Wireless Medicine
When we first think of the wirings in Medicine, we may think of the critically ill patient, surrounded by dozens of entangled leads that all connect up to machines that continuously programme to maintain that patient’s life. ECG leads, pulse oximetry, blood pressure cuffs. Then, when we think of wireless medicine, we adopt a thinking…
