No one is immune from a groupchat blunder
On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, told the entertaining story of being added, alongside Pete Hegseth and J.…
Have we become too reliant on antidepressants?
One in seven British adults – almost nine million people – now take antidepressants. Yet a study attached to the…
Sydney Smith’s love for life lives on
Why should anyone care about Sydney Smith, who died on this day in 1845? 180 years have diminished the stature…
Why the NHS is failing
The NHS is swallowing more money than ever, yet delivering worse results. Now its failings are not only hurting patients,…
Dinner for one is the best way to spend Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day, as the nation does its duty and celebrates by dining out, often in stilted discomfort, it occurs…
Doctor Who fans – and its writers – need to grow up
Doctor Who, which started back in 1963, is often spoken about with a curious reverence as though it were something…
The true value of going to Oxford
Difficult, I know, to spend your life dreaming of having gone to Oxford. This year’s offers have just been announced…
When did the A&E winter crisis become the norm?
Not a winter goes past without hospitals overflowing; the situation is so predictable it deserves a better word than ‘crisis’.…
The addictive joy of cookbooks
New Year’s resolutions are famously frail, so pick one that’s achievable. Half of the year’s cookbooks are sold in December:…
Life and death on the hospital ward at Christmas
Most people shudder at the thought of working on Christmas Day. Not me. I’ve worked as a hospital doctor since…
Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with
Most of those commenting on the guilt or innocence of Lucy Letby – the nurse who is serving 15 whole-life…
Labour’s hospital smoking ban is doomed to fail
I have spent a quarter of a century caring for people dying from smoking. Deaths of this sort are not…
I’ve seen too many deaths to think that assisted dying is a good idea
Over my quarter-of-a-century of being a doctor, I have overseen thousands of deaths. For a busy hospital physician, this is…
Badenoch is right: not all cultures are equally valid
Kemi Badenoch kicked up an almighty stink when she argued at the weekend that not all cultures are ‘equally valid’…
There’s nothing wrong with being a ‘junior’ doctor
‘The wise bustle and laugh as they walk, but fools bustle and are important,’ wrote F.L. Lucas a century ago.…
