Anti-fragile: humans need risk, not ‘safe spaces’
Last week I had a medical student shadowing me when we were called to the Emergency Department for a critically…
From mottos to slogans: the West is slipping
During a particularly long queue at Heathrow Airport – awaiting the pleasure of a malevolent little man, manhandling my personal…
Our collective immortality
Over the last week many patients – I suspect, upon hearing my accent – have asked my opinion of the…
Medical students give conservatives hope for the future
Those of us orientated to a more conservative perspective are failing on a number of levels, not least of which…
We all need a little ‘risk’ to survive
Is safety the best course of action? Our grandparents were willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve freedom for future…
The last few days (of chaos)
The afternoon sunlight creeps down the wall and as the day trades its heat for the intensity of evening’s deeper…
The danger of hubris
As the apocryphal tale of King Cnut goes, he commanded the sea: ‘You are subject to me, as the land…
Life is for living - not hiding
A woman came to the emergency department (ED) with abdominal pain. She was in her mid-fifties and was not well.…
Are masks really worth it?
With N95 masks now mandatory in most hospital settings, this has sparked a lively debate therein. One of the most…
The importance of informed consent in the Covid era
It used to go without saying that the morality of medical practice rested on informed consent. It is enshrined in…
Damage is being done to our medical profession
It may be that a major casualty from the pandemic is the damage done to the medical profession. Healthcare is…
A dangerous tone has crept into medical discourse
A dangerous tone has crept into the medical discourse. Over the last year, it has become increasingly common to encounter…
My other coronavirus victims
To date, 103 people have died of coronavirus in Australia, none of them under the age of 40, and only…
Medicos should have shown more scepticism over lockdown
As a general rule, it might be fair to say that us doctors should be wary of politics. There are two sides to…
