The emotional strain of healthcare
How do you guys do it. I could never do your job! How many times have those of us in the healthcare profession heard those questions? Dare I say that, at least once in our careers, most of us will have…
Category Literary Medicine
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Should I Stay or Should I Go?- an Irish Doctor’s conundrum
Aristotle and Benzos for Back Pain
The inspiration for today’s question, comes from (1) LITFL friend, and Twitter’s @ketaminh, who mused on an Aristotelian quote: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle and (2) the inimitable and…
Sophistry and VICC
What is sophistry? This term has evolved much over the years. According to the Collins Dictionary:n Interestingly, in ancient Greece, indeed, pre-Socrates, a Sophist was a teacher using philosophical methods to teach virtue. They were extremely persuasive in argument. As…
Obedience Under Arrest
There’s a torso at the front of the queue. Towards the back of the line, patiently waiting their turn, are several uniformed staff-members. Some of them are cracking their knuckles. They mean business. Well one doesn’t, but he’s a first…
Socrates and Sophistry: Croup
Socrates’ manner of philosophy was one of hypotheses. He is thought to be one of the forefathers of this type of thinking. He employed a method of negative hypothesis elimination, whereby a series of questions could be asked, and in…
Socrates and Sophistry
Socrates, the Classical Greek Philosopher (469 BCE – 399 BCE), was the forefather of questioning dogma. Through the writings of Plato, we understand that Socrates believed in dissecting and deconstructing firmly held beliefs and convictions. He famously invited any members…
Sophistry and Subarachnoid Haemorrhage
Are we dealing with myth or medicine, dogma or doggy doo, science or sophistry? Question: What causes T wave inversion on the ECG in the setting of some subarachnoid haemorrhages? Current explanation Because the sympathetic storm induced causes subendocardial myocardial…
The Other Type of Swiss Cheese
There are a hundred ways I could begin this piece. I don’t know which is best. I have tossed the introduction up and around until it’s lost its sharp angry edges, but then it doesn’t lie down on the page…
What is that stuff that you give for a fever?
Our American ER doc gone walkabout struggles with medications, millimoles and the metric system in the emergency medicine nirvana that is Tasmania...
The Tunneler
I can’t escape its screeching cries, Its siren serpents scorching eyes. It draws me deep into the neath, Below the wretches of the heath. Abducted from the cool fresh air, By a Sissyphean stair Whose relentless rapen churning crime Vaults…
Where should I stick this?
Searching my image library for adjunctive multimedia has brought back some great memories. Indeed wearing my retrospectacles affords wistful reminiscences of the persistent, whining and obtuse questions I asked (without research) of my mentors during training.