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Phaco nightmares

I am interested in the stressful nature of cataract surgery from the surgeon rather than the patient’s perspective. It is an issue that has quite literally kept me awake at night. Part of getting to grips with a problem is...

Your precious submission is awaited

It is one of the great trials of medical life trying to get things published. Where once upon a time a few case reports and being eighth author on a paper or two was more than sufficient to secure a...

We are all Hadiza

When I worked as a registrar at Newport many years ago I remember a no-nonsense corneal consultant railing about the way the tragic case of Lucie Linforth was being reported in the media. Lucie was a toddler taken into a...

Jury duty

Until a few years ago doctors were exempt from jury duty. I am glad that this exemption was lifted as the stint I did at the crown court in Swansea recently was one of the most illuminating two weeks I...

The vitreoretinal priesthood

When I first started doing cataract lists, the consultant at the time, a Mr Brown from Carmarthen, used to say that phacoemulsification was more akin to flying a jet fighter for short dangerous bombing runs than a boring long haul...

Move 78

The Soviet Union still existed throughout my formative years, along with a vague undefinable miasma of possible war that generated films such as Red Dawn and Rocky IV. My favourite film from that era was called War Games, in which,...

Effecting change

I took a picture of my new identity badge and sent it to everyone I knew. In fact, I put it up on Facebook as well. The two key words were ‘Consultant Ophthalmologist’ and let us ignore for now that...

Will it change management?

Like most doctors I have read and am a fan of Samuel Shem’s House of God, with my favourite Rule being Rule 10: “If you don’t take a temperature you can’t find a fever.” If you don’t intend to treat...

How to survive the fluorescein round

One of the highlights of the medical retina fellowship programme at Moorfields is the Tuesday morning 8am fluorescein round. It is both exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating because they are slick presentations of the most interesting cases that each of the...

Space age surgery

I asked to do theatre lists at Moorfields as part of my timetable. The medical retina fellow jobs are a bit odd in that the vast majority of the different rotations lack a regular theatre session. This might suit some...

Informed consent – the Brexit test

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) runs courses on various medicolegal topics. I would guess people only ever attend these courses if they have an exam or an interview approaching as the subject matter is exceedingly dry for clinicians. I myself...

Rite of passage

The Lakota Sioux people of Dakota have one of the best preserved Native American cultures in the United States and when people think of the ‘American Indian’ it is to the culture of the Lakota Sioux that people mostly turn....