Member's Blog

I write a weekly blog for members, on a wide range of topics around health and the heart. Non-members can explore the topics below to see what I write on a week by week basis. If you'd like to join, click here to find out more.

 

Click bait headlines

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My happy place

This week’s blog has been written in advance, as it has been one of the highlight weekends of my year. The annual ‘miscellaneous medics’ golf tournament. 8 of us who met either at medical school, or in the first year or two as junior doctors, have got together annually for over 20 years now to […]

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Getting out of my comfort zone

A month or so ago I received an email asking if I would give a talk at a conference. The request was from the British Society for Heart Failure (which is the specialist society for this in the UK) and so I was flattered to be asked. I was also a bit nervous. I’m quite […]

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It’s like buses

A heart condition was like buses this week – wait for ages then two come along at once, oddly on the same day. I’m not one for reading the news these days, it’s all too depressing for the most part, so when my wife asked if I had heard what happened to Emma Willis this […]

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Stories from the coal face

I’m coming to the end of a busy week on-call, and now very much looking forward to a day off tomorrow! I see so many patients during a week on-call, that there are always some interesting cases for my weekly blog, and this has certainly been the case this week. From a ‘human factors’ perspective, […]

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Trials and tribulations

Every time I look at a medical journal these days it seems there are more trials and studies coming out about weight loss drugs, but not necessarily about the weight loss itself. An issue however, is that without large randomised controlled trials, it can be hard to make definitive conclusions. We know for sure from […]

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Personalised medicine

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A very rare finding of a very common test

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The next chapter

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The hardest day of my life

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The polypill

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One of my pet peeves

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Athletic inspiration

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What has viagra got to do with the heart?

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A humbling experience

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A hidden epidemic

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I don’t want good i want excellent

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An emotional week

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Weight loss ‘wonder drugs’

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New Year’s resolutions

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Happy New Year

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What’s an incidentaloma?

I wanted to write today though about a story you may have seen in the news this week. Davina McCall gave her first interview after having brain surgery to remove a benign growth called a colloid cyst. Whilst benign, these can still cause problems if they grow, by compressing other structures within the brain. Poor […]

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What a difference a week makes

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I won’t forget last Thursday as long as I live

The plan I had for this week’s blog went out the window on Thursday night this week, for what turned out to be a night I shall never forget. Each year, my colleague and I take our amazing Dorset heart failure team out for a Christmas meal, and this year’s event was on Thursday at […]

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