Had a bunch of people asking why we still need a vaccine despite a high survival rate for COVID-19. This is my answer.
#MedTwitter
#COVID19
#CovidVaccine
The hardest thing about being a doctor? Emergency surgery? No. Night shifts? No. Not having a break to eat or drink sometimes? No. Dealing with difficult colleagues who make a hard job even harder
#medtwitter
Excellent! Proof of concept that these administrative tasks can be delegated and junior doctors can receive with more training suitable to career progression!
#MedTwitter
Really productive day
@barnshospital
for our 'Pharmacy Discharge Team' (formed to help facilitate patient flow during the
#JuniorDoctorsStrike
). 17 TTO's written by our Pharmacist Prescribers... 29 in total over the last 3 days. Equivalent to a full ward worth of beds! 👏
I forgot about all the ruptured appendixes I’ve removed in the middle of the night and the necrotic bowel I’ve had to chop out over the years. Next time we’ll try putting it in rice.
The NHS is currently running on: 10% chocolates at the nurses desk, 20% caffeine, 30% the euphoria of finding a pen that works & 40% the good will of staff that go above & beyond at no extra cost except that of their own mental & physical health
#medtwitter
I’ve said it before, the NHS work culture is toxic with utter disregard for the personal well-being of junior doctors. This is more evidence of that.
#MedTwitter
Incredible contempt for junior doctors from
@royalhospital
CEO Dr. Hal Spencer.
“Ultimately we need to make it not too comfortable for them”.
To fund it from the educational pot?
These are doctors FOR FUCK SAKE.
Context from OP provided in the last pic. Doctor is now in NZ.
#TipsForNewDocs
Regularly working past your allocated hours is not a badge of honour, it’s a fast track to burnout. If you *have* to on the odd occasion make sure you get paid for the extra work/claim time off in lieu. Good will doesn’t pay the bills!
#medtwitter
This comment is wild.
This comment punched me in the softest squishiest part I didn’t know I had.
The real value metric of my content isn’t view, likes, shares or comments.
It’s the impact that a video can have on someone’s life.
Be well & stay curious!
It takes a while to realise but being a good doctor isn’t *just* about knowledge acquisition. Emotional intelligence is arguably more important: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills & motivation
#MedTwitter
#success
The woman who can “smell Parkinson’s disease” is now working with scientists across the world to see if she can smell & develop a simple diagnostic tool for cancer & TB! Mind blowing
#MedTwitter
#SuperHuman
Remember “junior” doctors aren’t asking for a pay RISE per se, but more accurately pay RESTORATION. Semantics are key here.
Maintaining a career in medicine, let alone progressing in said career is financially straining.
#MedTwitter
#JuniorDoctorsStrike
New doctors starting next week; don’t worry about making mistakes...here’s some stuff I did: 1) Attempt to shake hands with a blind man 2) Asked a patient’s wife if she was his mother 3) Ended a referral to a Neurosurgeon with “Love you bye”
#medtwitter
The simple truth is that for a lot of doctors it is NOT very easy to migrate to another country or even take on a new profession.
The NHS is a chicken coop where good ideas go to die and dreams have a ceiling.
Pay is just one issue, working environment is another entirely!
Re Junior Doctor strikes, the 'if you don't like it, get another job / go elsewhere' crowd need to rapidly learn that doctors are doing exactly that. It's (partly) why you struggle to see a GP, or it takes months to see a specialist. We simply do not have enough of them.
Surgery has taught me that I don’t need to control my emotions but to control my reactions to those emotions. And patience, lots of patience.
#LifeLessons
Timely reminder that your favourite “influencer” probably cares less about your gut health & microbiome and more about discount codes & commission.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, OTC gut health supplements are at best hype, at worst a scam.
#MedTwitter
#guthealth
People taking probiotic and prebiotic supplements daily, would you care to look back at the amount of money wasted?
Me and a patient recently calculated the money he spend on daily probiotic use since one year for fatty liver and "gut health." Took us a good 1 hour to go through
It’s common sense to know that availability of good, nutritious food directly correlates with increased productivity & staff mood. Alas beggars can’t be choosers under the auspices of the National Health Servitude
£6.50 for a coffee and a sandwich in my hospital.
Enough to sustain a doctor for a 12 hour shift?
@NHSEngland
@NHSScotland
@scotgov
@GOVUK
why are you continuing to extort doctors?
Meals for NHS staff should be free, or heavily subsidised. They should be healthy, and 24/7
An unhelpful tweet which further serves to fuel the notion that “junior doctors” are refusing the negotiate with the government.
This is NOT an issue with “both sides”.
Patients are coming to harm because the government are politicising junior doctors pay issue
I used to retrospectively berate myself about not being productive on days off. I used to just nap, eat & watch tv. I’ve finally realised that is incredibly productive...for my physical & mental health!
#medtwitter
Things which should be FREE or subsidised if you’re a health care worker: hospital parking, registration fees, all union fees, MANDATORY courses (why the hell are these not free if we HAVE to do them)
#MedTwitter
Still baffles me how healthcare workers DON’T have access to appropriate rest facilities & hot food 24/7. It would be terrible if we had to do shift work - oh wait.
#NightShift
#nhs
#doctor
Enjoying the occasional fizzy drink, family pack of chocolate animal biscuits or extra cheesy cheese pizza will not shorten your life span, but stress of dieting & food restriction will.
#medtwitter
In my 9th year as a doctor I’ve finally learned that happiness isn’t a finish line. There is no such thing as accomplishing enough tasks, accumulating enough stuff that will make you happy forever. Find the little joys in every day!
Be highly suspicious of your favourite influencer who promotes dozens of supplements. The only one likely to be reaping any benefit is their bank balance.
Don’t underestimate the impact of small changes. For example, increasing your fibre intake by 10g a day can lower your bowel cancer risk by 10%. That’s just a small potato, an apple and a few nuts!
Can’t believe I’ve somehow managed to stay in the best-seller charts for the 3rd week in a row. Even my dog Shadow can’t quite comprehend how a stupid hooman has pulled it off!
Can patients recover faster if we aimed to improve hospital sleep conditions? Would staff productivity & job satisfaction improve with the same? Both rhetorics..overwhelmingly yes.
#medtwitter
#sleep
Advice when taking referrals as a doctor: 1) The person making the referral is competent & knows their stuff - see the patient. 2) The person making the referral hasn’t got a clue what they’re talking about - see the patient.
#medtwitter
So there are Australian citizens stranded overseas due to COVID but it’s ok for dozens of tennis players to fly in to play in a tennis tournament? And then test positive. Totally makes sense.
Hospital passwords:
Error! please choose password that contains at least three Egyptian heiroglyphics, one exotic Peruvian Hornswazzle, two lower case letters and five slow cooked pieces of Mongolian Mountain Hog.
#MedTwitter
#password
My mum, a haematologist, one of the most chilled out specialties, warned me years ago against going into medicine. I wished I had listened. Now I’ll forever deepen my sunken cost fallacy.
@drkaranrajan
Delighted for you Karan and any recognition you get is truly deserved. After 12 years of online teaching this book has so much to offer. Can’t wait to read it.
I genuinely believe that chatGPT could do a better job of being UK health secretary. It’s easy to use & responds to basic prompts
#MedTwitter
#JuniorDoctorsStrike
When I was a kid all I wanted was to be grown up so I could make sense of the world and have everything figured out.
Well now I’m a 31 year old surgeon - and adults don’t know what’s going on either.
So enjoy the confusion and the journey.
The “beauty & skincare” industry has pathologised and turned normal things into medical conditions. Visible pores & pimples are normal. Most people don’t *need* 15 products for their skin
#medtwitter
It took me many years to realise “looking healthy” isn’t necessarily equivalent to being healthy. These two states can be opposing. Now I’m content with sleeping well, exercising to feel good and being mentally content
#bodypositivity
If you haven’t been bullied, humiliated or infantilised in the NHS, have you even worked in it? A bigger issue than pay is toxic work culture in the NHS & it’s impact on junior doctors.
As an F1, I was bullied in my 1st job. The rota coordinator (doctor) really disliked me for knowing my rights with study leave & annual leave. I found out later they told others including my 1st ES behind my back I was a bad team player. Nothing was said to my face for 2 months.
As we’ve seen racism still exists everywhere...social media, on the streets...at the hospital when a family asks for a white doctor..
#kickitout
#SayNoToRacism
There is an assumption that the “worst” of society hang around on Tiktok but realistically you will find the same trolls, conspiracy theorists, extreme viewpoints and dumpster fires on EVERY platform.
Platforms don’t breed opinions, people do.
The Wim Hof method does work...the same way cold exposure, meditation & deep breathing worked when Indian Gurus practiced it centuries ago. Many modern day white-washed wellness fads & bio-bro science hacks are direct imitations of Ayurvedic medicine.
Aside from the stark racism here. It also never fails to surprise me that people STILL don’t know the difference between race, ethnicity, nationality & culture.
Signing 4,000 individual pages for signed copies of my book? Completed it mate.
Despite the pain it was a privilege having demand for my book and the fact people want my signature on copies!
You can now pre-order the book WORLDWIDE (!) here:
For the longest time I thought failure was the opposite of success. Slowly I’ve learned that they are both part of the same timeline; one is not possible without the other.
#medtwitter
#Motivation
Often healthcare is very data driven. Emotion is seen as a glitch in the system. Patients are not data points. If we want to achieve Patient centred care, we need more human connections.
#healthcare
I always used to compare myself to other people and be disappointed if I didn’t match up. What I’ve realised is that you shouldn’t compare someone else’s chapter 14 to your chapter 1. You’re on your own journey
#Motivation
It took me 7 years of working in the NHS to have the guts to speak up and escalate issues if I see something clearly wrong affecting me or others. It’s so easy to assume someone else will take care of it or say “it’ll be fine” or just be afraid of the consequences of speaking up.
If you want above average results, you need to do above average things. If you want to wake up feeling fresh & have a productive day, you don’t get to binge Netflix til 2am. Letting go of normal things is sometimes the price of excellence.
#LifeLessons
But worth knowing that they: 1) earned more per hour 2) had a smaller patient population to deal with 3) had rota consistency 4) worked with a consistent team 5) were respected more by the media, public & other staff
Surgery taught me...you need to aim to better but not perfect. Strike a balance between raising the bar and not berating yourself when you make mistakes or have a setback
#LifeLessons
#surgery
I’ve just had my first mince pie of the year. Feels unacceptably early. The real question is, part biological part philosophical - are any of our food craving truly ours? Or those of our microbial colonisers
#Christmas
Exactly this. Infantilisation of “junior” doctors erodes confidences in trainees who may well be older and have more life experience than their work “seniors” but it also provides a negative depiction of trainees to the wider public.
The other day an consultant said
"Lets leave it to the children"
Referencing myself and the other reg
I replied
"I'm almost 38, with a mortgage and wife, i definity don't feel like a child, I'm sure my colleague doesn't either"
I was very pleased with myself!!
For a long time I tried to be better than others - a by product of the ultra competitive surgical world...but I’ve learned it’s far more important aiming to be better than YOU were yesterday
#medtwitter
It took me some time as a doctor to realise you don’t have to *take* a history from most patients; let them speak. Silence is a pretty underrated tool. Doctors interrupt too much
#medtwitter
Fun Fact: Fish Skin can be used for treating some burns instead of traditional coverings. This technique was first identified in Brazil!
#MedTwitter
#burns
#plasticsurgery
Surgery taught me...the energy you waste worrying about external noise is better used on the task at hand. Your mental energy is a hugely precious resource. Use wisely
#surgery
#LifeLessons