Medical literature/arts

Crucial Interventions - an arty book of surgery

So, with a view to a broader take on medicine, I'm trying to read a few novels and absorb a little medical culture in between the scores of facts that I'm learning in the weeks.

So far:
Morris Gibson - One Man's Medicine (James Herriott-esque tale of working in Hull as a GP)
Atul Gawande - Complications (learning on the job as a surgeon)
Jed Mercurio - Cardiac Arrest (1990s TV dark drama/comedy series of horrific hours on the NHS wards)
BBC - Inside Harley Street (2015; exploring the world of complimentary therapies, private consultants; plastic surgery etc. in London)
Thomas Lilti - Hippocrate (2015: Film about a French intern dealing with his mistakes, seeing that experience counts more than rank, the food&cultural underpinning in a French hospital, the importance of good clinical skills with the patients)
Samuel Shem - House of God (cynically written, reminds me of Catch-22 and Catcher in the Rye, actually too cynically written for me to finish)
Atul Gawande - Reith Lectures (more on the theme of learning and making mistakes in medicine)

Matthew Syed - Bounce (a helpful take on the benefits of practice and how to avoid becoming preoccupied with notions of talent)
Richard Hollingham - Blood and Guts (a history of surgery, including a great take on the 19th century developments of anaesthesia, haemostasis and aseptic technique)
Henry Marsh - Do no Harm (memoirs of a neurosurgeon, including the thrill of the operating microscope, dealing with dying patients, greiving relatives, challenging NHS managers, and the decline of the doctor's omnipotence)
Steven Soderbergh - The Knick (surgical drama set in 1900; main protagonist played by Clive Owen - a cocaine addicted creative surgeon)
Mark Porter on BBC R4 - Inside Health (picking a local health topic each week; Tuesdays at 9pm, not particularly challenging, has a British GP feel to it)
Claudia Hammond on BBC World Service - Health Check (picking a global health topic each week; Wednesdays at 8.30pm, has an international feel to it)
Lisa Sanders - Every Patient Tells a Story (from the technical advisor to House, MD - insight into the medical life)
Kevin McKidd - Grey's Anatomy (remarkably well-scripted drama about surgeons starting out on their internship rotations in the US)
Victoria Pile - Green Wing (sitcom from 2004-7, dead funny, set in an NHS hospital)
Dan Sefton - Trust Me (drama from 2017, nurse posing as a doctor)
James Wood - Quacks (comedy from 2017, surgeons set in Victorian Britain, moderate at best)

In the planning:
BBC3 - Junior Doctors (2011-2013; exploring the trouble around being an F1)
Max Pemberton - Trust Me I'm a junior doctor (columnist)
Daniel Kahnemann - Thinking Fast and Slow (on human rationality and irrationality)
Atul Gawande - Better (a surgeon's broad visits to and review of what improves medical interventions - from Iraq to India)

>>list updated as it grows<<

Porto Hostel

Gallery Hostel - Porto

Can't recommend this hostel enough:
http://www.gallery-hostel.com/en/

Particularly - an art gallery on the inside (and over the road from another gallery), communal three course delicious meals served with the staff and their wine; a substantial DVD collection with a cinema-room, guitars, bikes and a terrace.  What's not to like?!

+ Breiner '85 gig venue
+ Muralhas wine
+ Liveria Lello & Imao
+ Restaurante Salta-O-Muro (Matosinhos district)

Spent a lovely few days there with Nick & Jon at Easter, before partying in Bairro Alto, Lisbon and visiting Braga for their pre-Easter build up.

Social psychology of relationships

A helpful management / social psychology site covering relationships
http://www.changingminds.org/

Particularly interesting to read the section on transitions in relationships. Would have stood me in good stead working with some of the pscyh patients; and may well be helpful in some of the relationship crises that our medical patients get wrapped into.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/relationships/devito_stages.htm

The sections on group dynamics also useful @ work.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/groups/groups.htm

Australian culture - checklist

Have been given something of a cultural checklist to work through on the trip:

Films (Rotten Tomatoes scores in brackets) - mention to Craig
Mad Max (95%)
Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom (95%)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (91%)
Crocodile Dundee (88%)
Rabbit-proof fence (88%)
Gallipoli (81%)
Romper stomper (80%)

Music
AC/DC, INXS, Silverchair, Kylie (not much to go on, then...)

Food/drink (largely thanks to Simone)
Dimsims
Big M's
Lemon bitters
Golden gaytime
Snags
Tim-tam slam
Goon juice
Twisty's

Animalia:
Cane toads, and the necessary koalas, kangaroos, parrots and platypus.

Blood Alcohol Data

Prompted by tighter alcohol restrictions in Australia, given 0.08% alcohol is the UK legal limit (80mg/100ml), it's good to see the data on what each drink will do to a person of my body mass.

Essentially:
- people of all sizes digest 0.015% per hour
- 1 pint of beer corresponds to ~0.04/0.05% (less effect for fatties, more effect for women of same weight)

So - in Australia, one pint every 3 hours is the upper limit.

Some lessons from OU MSc Development Management - Places Visited (Bangladesh)

Bangladesh visit - November 2009

Bangladesh - visited Nov 2009  I enjoyed a comfortable office life for my short time in Dhaka, and saw micocredit really working in the villages.  That said, also the tight press of bodies lining the roads, stringy rickshaw-pullers, and a lack of women in the traffic-choked city; in the country my food poisoning was desperate!

History/Economy/Society: Despite independence from Pakistan in 1971, 60% of the population remain landless, (cf ~30% UK), including the vast majority of women.  Water quality is a big problem (Weil's disease, diarrhoeal bacteria in water courses), and latrine usage only 16% in rural areas.  Fertility rate has dropped to 2.2 (from 7 in the 1970s).  Healthcare remains private, but education is free to 18.  Most workers in the largest industry (garments) are women - but with wages as low as $0.15 per hour.  There are 16.3m microcredit borrowers excluding Grameen (which has another 8m) i.e. about 5% of the population.  Transport infrastructure remains poor, and the quality of education is also very poor (high dropout rate).

ODA: $89bn since 1971.  Gradual increase in HDI underpinned by birth control, microcredit, agricultural efficiency (up 3x since 1971), anti-poverty social safety nets (12% of govt spending), and largely the power of the huge NGO BRAC, which has made strides for the population in health, education and other areas.  Bangladesh is a bit of a benchmark for good NGO work.

Some lessons from OU MSc Development Management - Places Visited (Ghana)

Ghana visit - spring/summer 2000

Ghana - visited Apr-Aug 2000  Vivid recollections of hip-life music, muslim drivers + ablutions, colourful batik makers; but polio, beaches w/open sewage, animal cruelty: tiny crocodile on show in an oil can, and kids without schools to go to.

Economy/History: First half of the colonial period 1867-1902 significant conflict between Ashanti and colonists, which previously had included Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Danish, Portuguese and British.  From then till independence in 1957 was initially a traditional export-oriented colonial economy (gold, ores, timber, ivory and later significantly cocoa), with legislative councils in the cities (Accra, Cape Coast, Sekondi), and tribal chiefs with absolute power backed by the colonists in the regions.  Post-independence, the economy suffered at the whims of the markets, experiencing no per-capita growth between 1960 and 2000.  Recent industrialisation, oil finds, automotive and digital manufacturing have pulled the country forward, with consistent rapid growth since 2000.

Social: Since 2003, pay-before-care 'cash and carry' healthcare was replaced by basic universal health coverage, provided by a tax-funded national health insurance scheme.  Since the 1980s, education up to age 14 has been free (though school meals and uniform paid for).  2012 election manifestos sought to provide free education including ancilliary costs up to age 18.

ODA: Broadly ineffective 1960-2000, despite $21bn aid (1960-2000) and $15bn aid (2000-2010), and a current debt of $11bn.  Growth was significantly hindered by the structural adjustment conditions on loans from 1988-, leading to unemployment and health sector cutbacks.  NGOs were enacting projects in many areas: WASH, HIV, education projects, environment, transport, agriculture, public sector reform.  Unclear what influence these had on the country.