BeamOn

You live, you learn!

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:52:00 GMT

Sometimes life gives you insights, moments of experience that can give an unexpected empathy.

When it comes to emotions, I'm a bit of a Forrest Gump, you know "I'm not a smart man... but I know what love is." But I can learn .... when the lessons are delivered with a short sharp blow.

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Another year ...

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:15:00 GMT

Here we are in 2010. What has 2009 taught us in oncology in our little corner of the world? Read on...

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What are we teaching our medical students?

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

The training of the young doctor has been subject to much change in recent decades. Flexner's day is done - although if you set up a medical course now and promised to excel in Basic Sciences, then you would be very very revolutionary, if a little reactionary!

Still, we try to stuff the knowledge in, as much as we had to, but thankfully we are a little more aware of the patient journey and experience. We particularly like to get out students to see the other side. The following blog is just that - a student's experience of a cancer patient. I was moved by the freshness and 'first time-ness' of the experience.

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Early Treatment Does Not Improve Survival in Relapsed Ovarian Cancer

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:36:00 GMT

National identity plays a large part in the shape, capability and cost of the nation'shealth service. Whether settled by children of convicts, children of rebels, or some other historical bend in the road, the health system will reflect the heritage.

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The Surgeon became The Patient

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:51:00 GMT

There is a poignancy for us oncologists when we see that one of our own has succumbed to the disease that we battle every day. Initially as young doctors we treat people much older than us, and then before much time passes, they suddenly are aged about the same. And then some of us get it, and the experience becomes different. Less knowledge might actually be of more help. New perspectives arise. So itseems to have been for our colleague.

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GIGO

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:28:00 GMT

.... it means "Garbage IN, Garbage OUT". One of my 20-40 daily RSS feeds pulled up this gem of an article about a cancerous IT guy who decided to embrace the information superhighway, only to discover that it is inhabited by feral creatures eating his data and regurgitation a mess. How surprising!

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Feelings

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:23:00 GMT

Every so often your previous unpleasant experiences revisit - presuming you have had some! I have and the other night they were active, bubbling to the surface and making it difficult to concentrate. So I took some time to throw together a very garbled blog entry to get it 'off my chest'. This of course will work temporarily and be back again later. Such is the nature of the unpleasant experience.

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Consent forms

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:34:00 GMT

Having dealt with the ability of consent to curtail good medicine, let's look at that infuriating Consent Form. It even affects our language ... "I have to consent the patient" ... what? Well, that view of the world is addressed in this blog. And then I promise you, no more consent issues ... for a couple of months anyway!

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Consent for ....

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:33:00 GMT

I find it very hard working out how to stay out of the way of individual ethicists and committees of ethicists who are telling us what's right and wrong (which is actually a moral dilemma, not an ethical dilemma!). Do you?

Sorry, is it ethical to ask you that question?

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Competence

alexisandrew@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:55:00 GMT

Competence concerns me - one day I will be a patient!

But modern medicine is too big for any of us individually, we are drowning in data. 20 years ago we decided that doctors had to be "life long learners". Now we know this is insufficient, we need to be "life long learning collaborators" always realizing that we will only ever know part of a field. We need to learn to hunt as a pack!

Here's one story showing a new mindset.

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BeamOn

You live, you learn!

Another year ...

What are we teaching our medical students?

Early Treatment Does Not Improve Survival in Relapsed Ovarian Cancer

The Surgeon became The Patient

GIGO

Feelings

Consent forms

﻿Consent for ....

Competence

Consent for ....