Latest Blog Post

Margaret McCartney published in ‘views and reviews’ of the British Medical Journal Volume 362 on 4^th September 2018. It’s called ‘A Summary of Four and a Half Years of Columns in one Column’.

She wrote for four and a half years in the BMJ; she is a genius.

Margaret McCartney wrote the book ‘The Patient Paradox’ which was wonderfully given to me as a present by Shaun Sellars, my counter-part in the new Incisive Decisive blog which will be released for general consumption in the next few weeks.

He sent it as a thank you for writing the blog and was one of the most precious gifts.

If you work in healthcare, if you value healthcare, then you have to read that book.

In McCartney’s column in September, her farewell piece of writing to the BMJ, she wrote down the 35 points that she had learned from writing the column.

Number 35 is as follows:

‘Medicine is an absolutely brilliant job, and having long term relationships with patients and families is one of the most joyous and fulfilling aspects of work’.

I think I’d like her to be my doctor.

Number 34 although reads as follows:

‘Medicine is a tough, unglamorous and difficult job which, with under staffing and austerity, often feels impossible to do well’.

But Margaret McCartney’s main legacy is her introduction of the importance of evidence based care and showing up the great holes where is doesn’t exist.

Point 31:

‘Less medicine may be better treatment. It can often feel risky to de-prescribe, even though it shouldn’t’.

You should get this and read it. I can’t link to it here but you can search it online. You should try to find things that McCartney has written, read them as part of your CPD and as general life learning.

It would make you better.

Two more points to leave you with. Two more pieces that Margaret McCartney has tried to teach as she has learned. Two more ways that she has tried to leave her legacy, and she has certainly left one with me.

‘A system that uses blame to attempt improvement is likely to make good professionals miserable and leave’

and finally

‘if it’s not evidence based it might as well be homeopathy’.

Blog post number: 1768