This week I got to interview Dr Farhan Shahid who I got to know when I popped in to see a friend of mine at her Covid clinic - only to find Farhan teaching her how to do one-legged squats during their break. He is a qualified GP and in his second year (ST4) of … Continue reading How to be a Sport and Exercise medicine doctor – interview with Dr Farhan Shahid
I usually start my blog posts with how I meet my interviewees but, in absolute truth, I have no idea where and when Dipesh and I met. It must have been at an RCGP conference, but I do remember bumping into him later on at the RCGP HQ on Euston Road where we sat in … Continue reading How to become an academic GP and the issues around research – Interview with Dr Dipesh Gopal
In the UK, the training programme goes from August to August which means that, in a few months, there will be a new generation of new GPs who will have to navigate the working world and everything that goes with it. I've been locuming pretty exclusively over the last five years (bar an eight-month salaried … Continue reading Five years of locuming in London and what have I learnt? A basic guide for those thinking about it
This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Moyosore Makinde a.k.a Ore from Nigeria about the fantastic work she does promoting lifestyle changes to improve health and wellbeing. Lifestyle medicine is the concept of using evidence-based principles to treat lifestyle-related diseases rather than relying on pills or medical interventions. It is underpinned by six … Continue reading Lifestyle medicine in Nigeria – interview with Dr Ore Makinde
Earlier this year, I was selected to attend the 2020 WONCA Europe Pre-conference Exchange in Berlin. Conference exchanges are one of the activities offered by the Vasco da Gama Movement – they usually involve spending a couple of days shadowing a GP from another country before attending a conference in that country. They are a … Continue reading How Can You Do a Primary Care Exchange in the Midst of Global Pandemic?
It is Sunday night, 10pm, and Claire has just put her toddler to bed before we settle in for a Zoom call. Dr Claire Thomas is the immediate Past President of the Vasco da Gama Movement (VdGM) and we have crossed paths many times before I joined VdGM as the Liaison Officer to WONCA Europe. … Continue reading Covid in London – how are we getting everyone vaccinated? Interview with Dr Claire Thomas
My commute to my rehabilitation step-down unit for Covid patients in a community hospital takes me through my favourite part of London on foot. It's a market street in West London where normally the shops are spilling over into the pavement, the cafes are bustling with locals and stallholders are bantering with their regular customers. … Continue reading COVID in London – how did we fail?
"There are no grades to survival. You just survive or you don't" These are the words of my friend from medical school when we used to talk about night shifts. You cannot survive a night shift with style or with flair; you cannot make it looks good; you just make it to 9 am with … Continue reading COVID in London – the surge of the new variant
DISCLAIMER: I do not intend for these blogs to be seen as giving clinical advice nor as judging public health policy but rather to recount the lived experiences of family medicine physicians from across the world. I recommend you still follow your local guidance. Date of interview: 5th October 2020 Number of confirmed cases at … Continue reading A Portuguese doctor in COVID-19 – how can we combat the rising numbers of intimate partner violence?
DISCLAIMER: I do not intend for these blogs to be seen as giving clinical advice nor as judging public health policy but rather to recount the lived experiences of family medicine physicians from across the world. I recommend you still follow your local guidance. Date of interview: 24th August 2020 Number of confirmed cases at … Continue reading COVID-19 – Kazhakstan – can social media replace government messaging?
