Selfie of me posting my BMA Council election vote back to Civica

I’m pushing my luck sending my voting form for the BMA’s Council election back this late. Don’t miss your chance - post yours back ASAP! It must be back with Civica by 27 April ⏳⌛️

🚨 NEW: Joint Statement from National TULO on the right to strike.

labourunions.org.uk/right-to-str...

‪Together Alliance reckon half a million showed up. We were near the front of the march with the unions bloc and when we reached Whitehall, the back of the march still hadn’t left Park Lane, it was so big ‬

Doctors and medical students holding BMA placards and a banner that say “ Doctors against division“ and “Doctors for unity“

Marching today in solidarity with all those who oppose hate and division in our society at the @togetheralliance.bsky.social March in London

Wera Hobhouse MP and me in front of a big banner sign saying “No Palantir in our NHS”; I’m holding a little sign saying the same thing

A pleasure to meet @werahobhouse.org.uk, Simon Opher, @shockatadam.bsky.social and other MPs today about the risks Palantir poses to our NHS - patients trust us with their most personal information and we have to protect their privacy.

Thank you @martinwrigley.bsky.social for sponsoring the event!

A reminder to LEDs.

Please take a few minutes to answer this quick survey and help us better understand your experiences 👇

Today's Covid Inquiry report recounts the devastating impact on doctors, and our patients.
 
Watch BMA council chair Dr Tom Dolphin speak to press this afternoon

PS The election pack is still paper (and huge!) but that's because the changes to the law allowing electronic voting for this election haven't come into force yet, sadly - hopefully this is the last time voting will be physically as well as metaphorically weighty...

We need more trained reps working alongside our expert staff to build workplace density; structures aligned with our workplaces; proactive campaigning on our priority professional and trade union issues nationally and locally; and the financial resources to sustain the BMA into the future.

Thank you for your support last time that allowed me the chance to do the things I talk about in the video and more, and for your support this time to go on changing our BMA to be the union we need in the long term, in line with our strategy that has been yielding wins for us.

Don't forget to return your BMA Council voting pack - I'm standing for Council again, so I can continue to fight for doctors and medical students.
We need a strong union, and I'm driving forward our strategy to put power in the hands of the profession again.

Separately, atomised, we find it hard to make a difference in the face of massive systemic problems. Together, collectively, we can drive change that benefits doctors and patients, and through the BMA our voice is raised.

Thanks for having me, Alan and team!
@bma.org.uk

Me holding forth while standing behind a table laid with a BMA cloth, gesturing at the audience while making a point. Alan Stout, Chair of NI Council, is sitting watching from his place as convenor of the meeting. There were loads of people there but they’re all just out of frame, collectivising too

Me and Alan Stout, Chair of NI Council, in front of an old staircase at Riddel Hall in Belfast where the meeting was (but not in the meeting room itself as that was just a standard seminar room and not very interesting as a background for a photo)

Great pleasure to address an all-member open meeting in Belfast tonight. We talked about the shocking health disparity between NI and the rest of the UK, the lack of training posts, the pull of Sláintecare, and how the BMA’s new, strong collective voice can start to address them together ✊

Doctors/med students: fill in @bma.org.uk's survey on advanced practice roles and their potential impact on training and for employers to extend their scope into work only doctors should be doing.

It closes this Thurs at 4pm so be quick! (It takes ~10 mins)
www.surveymonkey.com/r/MVXCB99

Thank you to the Isle of Man Medical Society for their warm welcome. The doctors here are united and the solidarity is clear to see. ✊

It literally hasn’t stopped raining the whole time I’ve been here but I’ve found Man to be a friendly, delightful place. Will be back! 🇮🇲

Agreement on having tripartite negotiations BMA-ManxCare-DHSC to reduce back-and-forth; agreement that Man can learn from England’s missteps on doctor substitution; agreement that the Man Clinical Senate must be key to ensuring doctors’ voice in service decisions. ⚡️

Prakash Thiagarajan (Isle of Man Medical Society), Tim O’Neill (Chief Officer of DHSC), Claire Christian MHK (Health Minister) and me in the Isle of Man government office underneath the island government’s crest

Helen Robinson-Gordon (BMA head of media) and me crossing the road outside the Tynwald (IoM Parliament)

Prakash and me in Noble’s Hospital near Prakash’s department - behind us is the entrance to the children’s ward with an undersea-themed mural

After a stormy arrival on Friday, had a full day yesterday meeting members on the Isle of Man; followed by Manx Care’s Chief Exec & MD; then the Chief Minister, Treasury Minister, Health Minister and DHSC’s Chief Officer. Productive conversations, progress on important issues:

If the microscope comes in for an appendicectomy I’m calling the Consutlant

Thinking back to how totally different the anaesthetics that I gave back in 2006 were to today, I do wonder what we'll be doing in another few decades. If someone could invent a reliable tool to predict the duration of a "quick appendicectomy" that would be a great start, maybe!

My current team are the best, and we grew even closer during covid, when we looked out for each other and our patients together under intense circumstances. We came out of it with a bond I'm lucky to experience in the workplace, and working here is still great. Thanks guys! 💙

[2008ish, Cardiothoracics] My Educational Supervisor: During your training, you will have some placements you enjoy and some you don't. A key skill is concealing when it's one you don't.

Me: 😳

ES: Yes... Anyway, I've signed you off so you never need come back here again.

Me: Thank you... 😬

I've liked most places I've worked, but am very pleased to be a consultant where I started, at Charing Cross Hospital and at St Mary's. Along the way I've worked in 14 different hospitals in 20+ rotational placements across London and Essex, sometimes for as little as 3 months.

And there have been the patients who didn't make it, whose injuries or disease were unsurvivable, but for whom we tried our best; the anaesthetist is there with the rest of the team, doing the needful until the end. These patients aren't many, but one remembers them.

I've experienced a few serious mishaps along the way, fortunately none with lasting impact on the patient.

Often the day was saved by quick-thinking colleagues and our irreplaceable skills from lengthy, rigorous training; we give up those standards at our patients' peril.

I should add that the first anaesthetic I ever gave was actually aged 17, to Drosophila fruit flies for A Level Biology, so I could sort them for breeding. They all survived, but by month 2 I think I'd bred them for resistance as some were literally coated in ether, wide awake 🪰

Or the time I got lost in the hospital's basement corridors, unable to find my way back and with all the swipe card door panels refusing to recognise my card until I finally found one that let me back upstairs, to find myself about half a mile away from theatres by the post room.

Or the prone neurosurgical pt being extubated while I was giving a colleague a coffee break by someone standing on the tubing, and me reintubating him prone and then nonchalantly telling my colleague "It's been fine, no problems" when she got back, while the poor ODP sputtered protest behind me

Less fine was the furore the next morning when I arrived at 8am to find Recovery in chaos with dozens of relatives round his bed. Moreover the hospital had to be locked down because his large family had kicked off when his attackers turned up and machetes had been produced... 😬

Or the pt who *insisted* on dictating a lengthy farewell note to his mum before he'd allow hand-saving surgery - I had to stop him when he then started a note to his sister as well, lest he bleed to death while contemplating his own mortality (he was fine, as I knew he would be)

Or watching a famous surgeon eviscerate an interviewee visiting in theatre to discuss a fellowship role, while he operated endoscopically per rectum (like an anal laparoscopy) in front of an entourage of >10 residents who winced along with me as the poor guy went bright red