Monthly Archives: April 2015

#TOTW from 20-04-15 *VIDEO* (<3mins) 'Parkinson's sufferers can 'experience public rudeness'

“The last thing they need is to feel like a zoo exhibit when they step out of their front door.”

This is what Professor David Burn, clinical director of the charity Parkinson’s UK had to say of his patients. The BBC News health page (a fantastic source of current health-related stories) also reported the charity’s chief executive Steve Ford as saying:

“We certainly don’t expect people to be experts in knowing whether or not the person taking a little longer at the till, or looking unsteady on their feet is living with Parkinson’s. “But by signing up to our new campaign with a small pledge – to smile or be that bit more patient – you can have a real impact on the lives of people with Parkinson’s.” So this week’s #TOTW is:

*VIDEO* (<3mins) ‘s sufferers can ‘experience public rudeness’

So go on, check out this short video and see if there is anything you can learn about Parkinson’s.

As always…thanks for reading. Spread the word. Please share my blog with friends and family, and hopefully they can learn a thing or two…too!

Ben 🙂

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#TOTW from 13-04-15 Fantastic wk1 ‘Exploring Anatomy: the Human Abdomen’

This week for my #TOTW I’m shamelessly going to plug (though not for financial reward I might add!) FutureLearn – a fantastic online resource (owned by The Open University) providing courses ***FREE*** in the form of MOOCs – Multiple Open Online Courses:

Fantastic wk1 ‘Exploring Anatomy: the Human Abdomen’ by

This past couple of weeks i’ve been refreshing my anatomical knowledge – and learning some new stuff – on the human abdomen, but there are so many different kinds of courses on a huge range of topics:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/upcoming

The course i’m currently doing is provided by the University of Leeds and lasts 3 weeks, taking up to 4hrs a week to complete. This depends on how much you get involved in the course with regards to the discussion boards and the amount of research you choose to do. As well as the basic information, there are advanced bits also if you choose to delve a little deeper. I am really enjoying this course and it has completely re-ignited my interest in anatomy.

I’ve previously studied with FutureLearn for courses to do with drug development and the brain. Check out the link above and see if you can find a course that might interest you!

Go on…give a go! Nothing to lose, and knowledge to gain!

TOTW (x3!) Transgender children

Hola!

This week saw the start of a new daily programme in the mornings on BBC2 – Victoria Derbyshire. One featured a really good interview with a couple of transgender children:

(1) *VIDEO* (<15mins) Really interesting & informative interview by with children

Later in the week there was an article in The Telegraph about how parents do/could/should react to issues around transgender children:

(2)  to interview ‘How should parents react when children question their gender roles?’

Another really good article appeared in The Independent, from a mother about the abuse she suffered as a result of allowing her child to be themselves:

(3) If I had refused to listen to my trans daughter then it’s very likely I would have a dead son

I just wanted to use the opportunity of my weekly TOTW to draw together these 3 tweets on an issue that raises quite a lot of emotions from those who do not know much about transgender issues. If you’re one of those people, then please take the time to check out these links and learn a little about the pressures that both the children and parents go through when a child grows up in the wrong body.

It’s not a fad. It’s not trendy. It’s real.

#TOTW from 01-04-15 ‘The humble hospital gown is a metaphor for how we can transform the NHS’

“It’s like we had a great flight, but the airports at either end were awful,” said one patient of their experience of going into hospital for surgery.

As per the norm, my weekly blogette is intended to be ingested within about 5 minutes, thus allowing you to return to whatever it was you were doing beforehand!

As you should already know by now I am quite passionate about patient care and all things to do with making the patient experience as stressless as possible, so when I happened across this short article this week I just had to share…and share again as my #TOTW:

The humble is a metaphor for how we can transform the

Damon Kamming, a consultant ­anaesthetist at University College London hospitals, writes about his experience as a patient when he found himself on the other side of the fence:

“Patient feedback provides invaluable intelligence and insightful ideas about how to improve care and redesign services. Patients are our greatest assets for quality improvement – and we need to ask their help to better the care we deliver. Partnering with patients to improve their experience is the only way we will understand what matters most to our patients and how we can make things better.”

Simple, but effective in terms of patient care, and at the end of the day, that’s the business we are in…caring for patients!