Adele sings a song called Hello, which is about a mythical phonecall she makes to an ex-boyfriend about how different life is now compared to when they used to date. The chorus line repeated many times is “Hello from the...
5 February 2020
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
Ophthalmology
Over the past two years I have attended quite a number of medical educational seminars and ‘workshops’ and have been a bit shocked at how out of kilter with reality the world of education seems to be now. It seems...
2 December 2019
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
Ophthalmology
One of the most fascinating aspects of being a consultant is seeing the workings of the machine that is medical training from the other side. For two years now I have taken part in the specialty recruitment interviews and it...
1 August 2019
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
Ophthalmology
Who are the reps? Every one of us knows the friendly face of the local randomprost eye drop representative or the nice man from that eye lubricant company. These company representatives travel up and down the region with a smile,...
As I was travelling along a deserted road on a Sunday last month I saw in my peripheral vision a disconcerting flash of light behind me. Much as I tried to convince myself that the flash was due to the...
Swansea University invited me to an Away Day. There was a whole day of lectures planned at a hotel conference suite just outside Swansea but due to clinic commitments I only caught the afternoon session; a ‘workshop’, on how to...
1 December 2018
| Gwyn Samuel Williams
|
Ophthalmology
People seem to be interested in medicine for different reasons. There does seem to be a spectrum in ophthalmology in which people range from ‘do it for the pay’ all the way to ‘do it for the patients’, with some...
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...
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...
The first time I attended the Congress of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists was now more than 10 years ago, though I still remember the excitement of wandering down the aisles in the exhibition hall marvelling at the stands and...
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...
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,...