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The shift had been relentless in the quiet way that leaves no obvious disaster butdrains you all the same. Bleed after bleed of small crises. A bleep that never seemed to stop vibrating in my pocket. Unfinished notes and cold toast eaten standing up. By mid-afternoon, I realised I hadn’t sat down once. I was…

They arrived just after midday, pushed through double doors and onto our ward. The bed came first, then the oxygen cylinder, then the man himself: small inside the sheets, eyes half-open, as if he’d already decided not to look too closely at where he’d ended up. Behind him walked his wife and two adult children,…

There’s something to be said for paper notes—the way reading a hardback beats a Kindle. Of course, that charm vanishes when you remember the consultant’s illegible Mont Blanc scrawl, the ink running from a spilled coffee, or the wrist cramp of racing through a surgical ward round. F2 in SDEC was mostly fun: a variety…

The crash call came just after 6pm, when night had fallen but the ward was buzzing with visitors. I had just settled into the last stretch of my on-call – slipping into the doctor’s office to close my eyes for the briefest moment and hopefully grab a quick bite to eat. I’d been a doctor…

Nothing quite prepares you for the moment your words change someone’s life. You have cancer. Your wife is going to die. There aren’t any options left. It was a sunny afternoon in late September, the birds chirping outside the hospital window and the world alive with possibilities. The weather hadn’t turned yet, and you had…

This street was far too posh for my battered VW. I noticed it immediately, before I’d even killed the engine. My first F1 job in community psychiatry had already proved a mixed bag, but it would be hard to surpass being taken hostage by a psychotic Aston Villa fan on my very first day. At…