Essays in Good Practice: Lecture notes in contemporary General Practice

Book excerpt: Good Practice: What it means to put the patient first, not politics, posturing, pretentiousness, protocols or process. This is a text book for all doctors but especially GPs, Appraisers and Registrars. It is written by a 40 year plus front line NHS doctor who for most of his career worked twice to three times the current doctors’ Working Time Directive limited week. Chris Heath has been a Paediatric Lecturer in a teaching hospital, an Anaesthetist, various junior specialists and a GP for over 30 years in 3 different practices. He has been a GP Trainer and Appraiser and has seen politics and political correctness harm patients’ interests constantly over the last half of his career. From the way the NHS selects young doctors to the way they are educated and assessed, the best interests of the patient are largely ignored. This is a text book but it also contains home truths, advice, insights and original, honest guidance on being a safe, effective doctor. As well as giving an assessment of what has gone wrong with the NHS over the last 20 years, the author explains why today’s politicians, medical schools, Royal Colleges and many doctors will resist the changes essential to put the patients’ needs first again. 1 Politics, Who we are, The CQC etc 2 Administration, Training, The Consultation and Teaching 3 Basic Biology 4 Acute Medicine in General Practice 5 Alcohol 6 Allergy 7 Analgesics 8 Anticoagulants, Clotting 9 The Breast 10 Cancer and Terminal Care 11 Cardiology 12 Useful Clinical Signs, Eponymous diseases 13 Dermatology 14 Diabetes, Metabolism 15 Diet, Vitamins and Nutrition 16 Driving 17 Odd drugs 18 Ear, Nose and Throat 19 Gastroenterology 20 Geriatrics 21 Haematology 22 Hormones 23 Immunisation and Vaccines 24 Infections, Antibiotics, Microbiota 25 Legal Issues 26 Liver 27 Miscellaneous 28 Musculoskeletal, Orthopaedics, Sports, NSAIDs 29 Neurology 30 Ophthalmology 31 Paediatrics 32 Pathology 33 Pregnancy, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Contraception 34 Psychiatry and Controlled Drugs 35 Respiratory 36 Sex and STDs 37 Sleep 38 Travel 39 Urology 40 Work References