rodkersh1948

Football, tory intransigence & virtual reality head-sets

Poor me another drink,

Soothe me

Comfort me,

Don’t face me with facts.

Revelation #1 & the day I was kicked-out of Waitrose

If my mind is stolen,

and I acquire a Union Jack tattoo, you will know the experiment was a failure.

Crisis, alert, no beds!

Many are unaware of the pain and sometimes indignity facing the patients (as Old Adam waits on that stretcher, in hospital gown, bottom or testicle peeking-out, he needs the toilet, ‘Just go in your pad,’ he is told.)

I am a Tory! (& the trouble with memes)

You can say, ‘Molly, you are 95, your mum is dead, you have dementia, you live in a care home, sit down.’

Two or three roads diverged in a yellow wood, now and then.

Had I drowned, the story would have ended.

Thirty years ago and counting. 90’s reminiscence.

He has a glass that is so half-full that the Kool-Aid is spilling over the rim.

Time on my hands – Pour passer le temps.

For passing the time, as winter approaches.

Heraclitus, Zen & Il Gattopardo

To stay the same everything must change. That is, For you To remain In the same place, In the same state across time, Then everything else must alter Unless that is, You change a little and as The increments of progress encroach upon you The world’s altering will be less. You can’t put your handContinue reading “Heraclitus, Zen & Il Gattopardo”

Mild Cognitive Impairment, dementia, and a happy patient.

For the most, I think I know what I am talking about when I talk about dementia.

Papa

I visited my patient yesterday. He is from Alloa. In the Lowlands of Scotland. A tall, Former miner Now ageing gracefully. His grandson was there And his red-headed great-grand daughter. She sat colouring as I sounded The old man’s chest. ‘Papa, I’ll pop to the chemist.’ Said the grandson. He refers to himself in theContinue reading “Papa”

He & she, me, thee & thon

We talk so much of He As God Yet, When you think about it God is surely, If they exit, Bigger than man. Their remit Must at the very Least, Be man and woman. And isn’t She Both He and She? Doesn’t That word sustain the Essence of both? And What of they or themContinue reading “He & she, me, thee & thon”

Cold morning, 70’s flashback & white dog shit

It is Grundig TV with whiteouts and loops over and over

Where have all the bibles gone? (Can be sung to the melody of ‘Where have all the flowers gone? By Peter, Paul and Mary.)

Where have all the bibles gone? It used to be a thing I saw When staying at Hotels and hostels & similar types of places. In every Bedside drawer There would be a brown or blue Gideon Bible. ‘Look,’ I said to my daughter, ‘In your bedside drawer!’ ‘It’s empty,’ she replied. They seem toContinue reading “Where have all the bibles gone? (Can be sung to the melody of ‘Where have all the flowers gone? By Peter, Paul and Mary.)”

The state we are in, your future and mine. Echoing emptiness & uncertain tomorrow.

When you seek help, we will create systems of such complexity that no one who enters can ever arrive or find their way out. We will make Kafka laugh.

An unusual half hour – just a sharp scratch.

Vaccinations and Mystery photo…

Anxious Jew Redux, Professor Ian Robertson & Blindboy

Doctors are great at diagnosing or assigning diagnoses. It is something that makes many of them very happy. It provides the doctor with certainty, a finite box in which to insert their patient and to focus treatment – antibiotics, pain killers or anti-depressants. (I am sure there is a dopamine release every time a doctor signs a prescription).

Cognitive dissonance, the NHS, Virtual Wards, and the rest of the shit that is going down

I even recently read in a patient’s notes the following:

‘Called patient for telephone appointment. There was no answer. Patient has not attended the appointment. See again in six months.’

Bullying techniques, the lost photography of Vivian Meier, Jew-bugs & etc.

…the bullies themselves are becoming more cunning, the subtlety of the interaction can skew the response…

Take me to your specialist!

I know the people who can’t ‘get to see the doctor’ presume they are sitting around playing Wordle; this is not the case.

Today is the day of Elizabeth’s funeral. A rethink.

I keep thinking Land Rovers.

I think Dutchy Organics.

Purveyors of fine foods to HRH.

It’s a jumble.

When your batteries are running low, turn down the lights. Permanent pacemakers and other medical follies.

Recently, I received a message that my patient’s battery was running low.

Slap in the Face / To a Louse

It was a night in Dundee.

A guy whacked me in the face. I have the scar today.

The Queen, the queen is dead. Long live the.

Millennials have a super-sense that goes beyond the establishment’s reach.

Hooliganism and cheddar cheese sandwiches

If you are reading this and still eat animal-based foods on most days of the week you are contributing to the problem.

I am scared, proper anxious. Paranoid ideas and worries about the American.

There is a whole layer of stuff beyond my understanding, like the Matrix, there is a code running which can explain everything, at depth.

The 3 R’s, My American Wife & Jesus.

Stop moaning about the Norwegians or the Norway Fisheries folk and reduce your carbon footprint.

Elephants, walruses, and forlorn carpenters

Freya probably spent her days swimming between Shetland, Norway, and Holland because of Global Warming; another shitstorm caused by us, people.

The promise of the object is more powerful than the object itself

…if I don’t have that additional jam sandwich I might be in trouble.

Healthy ego

The pressures, whether overt or not, the unreasonable demands, the pushing, pulling, bullying and intimidation inherent in many workplaces or the uncertainty of tomorrow, the zero-hours tightrope, all make us human, fragile.

Not all bad news is the same, new discoveries, deviation into politics and SUMMERTIME.

Why is it not black and white? We, that is humans don’t seem to have the same problem with gravity or air…

London’s burning. Damn those firemen.

No one in healthcare works harder than GPs.

Open water swim and the bite of the pike

I don’t know what aquatic life is in Manvers, hopefully I won’t catch elvers, velvet or whatever the disease.

Nao and Zen, Time Beings and a regret for the inevitable

The butterfly beats its wings, and we are all prisoners of time.

The heat, boiling frogs and rampaging Cossacks

And yet, it is very hot.

Well, not as hot as in Yorkshire.

And the irony?

Popularity, dopamine levels and hours in the day

I started writing around six years ago as I was convinced, I was going to die from a heart attack.

Sun, sea and outdated cultural references

(Can you hear the crickets? The Bouzouki?)

Deceased albatrosses, dog companions and other thoughts and travels.

Michael was a true rambler, born in Russia he migrated to Glasgow then fought in Egypt and Palestine in the First World War then back to Glasgow and then off to Australia via Ceylon.

Too many books, or perhaps it was the pants.

I didn’t take my pants to the charity shop.

Free-association, mind-wandering, existential worries, and Yoda’s gender

Is the recession upon us? What I think about my tortoise, what do they think about me?

Killer whales, the menopause and my colleague A.

There may be women in the Tory party, it is however a sexist juggernaut.

I, like most people have a favourite pair of pants.

He had and has inherited my dad’s bibliophilia;

Language is funny and people are odd; thoughts of Macca, Kendrick and family relations

Climate change and the Anthropocene are their lingua franca. Heck, Ukraine then Roe v Wave last week. They see further than me, and that is great, that makes it worthwhile.

Weight loss junkie (the pitfalls of too much safety)

Family-doctor-dietician and still losing weight; you must be failing the person, not meeting their needs, not creating innovative or adequately tasty food, not supporting mealtimes, not doing your job.

I move through empty space.

Although if you are my brother,

Ancient Greek scholar (he’s a Greek scholar, not ancient).

This would not be surprising,

Belly. Thank you to Denise Lewis and the theory of misattributed causes

What happens when you blame others (things) for your own failings. Look within young Padawan.

I was taken aback yesterday (Human Factors, Elaine Bromiley & your local medical school)

Yesterday, Friday, I was out and about visiting some of our patients. We have an odd or you might say unusual model of healthcare provision in the surgery, I, as a geriatrician, not a GP don’t see a significant number of the ‘regular’ patients, instead I focus on those who are older or living withContinue reading “I was taken aback yesterday (Human Factors, Elaine Bromiley & your local medical school)”

Minimally invasive medicine

They perceive the wonder of human spontaneity, the fragility of hope and fear, the layers of anxiety, of prejudice, hope, joy and deprivation spinning atomic around the patient’s sense of self.

The Sailor from Dinnington

It was a few weeks ago. I was logged-on to a meeting. Locked, stock to the computer screen, my face flickering at 60Hz, my fingers dancing over the keyboard, and, me, for the most pretending to eye-contact, whilst reading the Guardian. During these times I exist in a split reality. My focus switching between theContinue reading “The Sailor from Dinnington”

Just say no.

The doctor might say, ‘I won’t give you any more pain relief until you have a test,’ a kind of pharmacological blackmail.

The carers took my independence

Originally posted on Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion):
Carers in the health and social care sector are a frequent soft-target for complaint. You can blame them for anything, and they often are the butt of the frustrations of those they support. You rarely hear complaints about the people running the agencies that employ the…

Person-Centred Teams & People

Originally posted on Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion):
Before I say anything, I’d like to begin by thanking the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Programme for starting me along this journey, and, Helen Sanderson for making it meaningful. If anyone is interested in reading more, please check-out Helen’s books or Helen Sanderson Associates’ website. I have written…

Photographic evidence. A long, convoluted road.

Sorry, you are inadequately tenacious to change the world. Go to prison. Do not stop at Go. Do not collect…

A dying breed. Knock, knock, It’s the doctor.

What makes a GP special is their knowledge of a patient, their insight over months, years, even decades into a person’s life. The bond that continues after the acute illness has passed, the person recovered, perhaps passed through school, left for college and returned, married then divorced, raised children.

Psychoneuroimmunology and all that

We are the finite of our bodies and we are the infinite of our minds.

We are a walking anachronism.

Long distance relationships

It was a toughie. It took me an hour to unravel what was what, which medicines were which, what had been stopped, started, changed, what he could and couldn’t do, what he understood, what the family understood, the plans for further tests and follow-up.

Doctoring, fast and slow.

Originally posted on Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion):
In my experience I have found three types of doctors; Those who work very fast, very slow or somewhere in the middle. This is obvious and logical as human behaviour is divided on the basis of a normal distribution, with most being average. In life, there…

My blood pressure is too high and when I get out of bed in the morning, I almost collapse. What should I do?

Thanks to Nigel for inspiring this blog. If follows-on from yesterday’s about postural hypotension. I don’t think, in fact, I am almost certain, no patient has ever asked me this specific question, although it is a thing. It is a condition that is tricky to manage and I suspect, one which is becoming moreContinue reading “My blood pressure is too high and when I get out of bed in the morning, I almost collapse. What should I do?”

Every time I stand up I fall over.

Originally posted on Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion):
This is potentially a tricky one as it will blend medicine with an overall philosophical interpretation of what is wrong with some aspects of doctoring. Where to begin? I’ll start with the straightforward – a lesson in physiology. I will not go into the details as…

the woods

They are a nightmare.

The poop you walk past, Navalny and others on standards in society

It is more a chaotic butterfly of cause an effect, a stochastic randomness that nudges the world in a certain direction.

Free Speech, Twitter, Elon & Biko

Some people, let’s call them extraverts tend to let everything spill-out. I am not one of those.

This blog is a form of cognitive expiation.

This is Dying Matters Week.

Freud suggested that we can’t imagine our own death.

I’ve tried and I can although it isn’t a comfortable or pleasant.

Oxygen masks, paranoid androids and helping others

Not so much, ‘When in doubt, act,’ more, ‘When in doubt, care.’

The Brazil nuts from Brazil

As a consequence of not scoffing sweet-salty popcorn or Sports Mixtures I have been consuming more nuts.

Civility, Incivility and being nice

Incivility from me to you is as bad as my stabbing you with a knife, just less bloody.

Florence Nightingale, Florence Synagogue, Dali and palpitations

‘Diagnosis – Florence Syndrome’

‘Treatment – avoid visiting Florence and/or trips to art galleries. Watch more TV’

What have I learned, what have I seen?

We don’t really move or go anywhere.

In space and time, we stand still.

Hospital at home, virtual wards and turning care in the community on its head

The doctor calling the ambulance rationalises their actions, ‘I don’t know what will happen to their chest (NB not ‘Albert’, but his chest – a lapse into pathology and medical-speak

Analogy

To me it means ‘oy vey’ and ‘there you go’.

The Waterboys, Gene Kelly & Worm Moon 2022.

I thought of the residents of my care home,

Was it disturbing their mental continence?

Would it influence me?

Human, all too human.

This is the transparency I encounter when I visit patients at home, in their poorliness or vulnerability, on their death-beds, in their terminal loneliness.

Black-belt medicine

For me, the difference between the two belts and their equivalents in medicine can be described as transactional and transformational care.

Holidays

I am famously last-minute. If you know Myers-Briggs, you could guess the last letter of my type. Despite this propensity, I almost always get things done on time. The argument to myself and those around me who wonder why I am not doing anything when I should be preparing is that I am thinking (worrying)Continue reading “Holidays”

My mum – for International Women’s Day 8 March 2022

My mum Would pass thread through the eye of a tiny needle and perform what she called invisible stitches. It was what all the ladies wanted. The middle-aged women would call-in at our house Requesting alterations to aid their spread, their girth expansion from the time in-between diets. Mum would sit at her Singer sewingContinue reading “My mum – for International Women’s Day 8 March 2022”