Duncan McGregor

Take plenty of food, and ideally not just snacky bits (though some moral-boosting chocolate etc is usually a helpful addition).
I always find I get super dehydrated on nights so try and keep up with fluids. I’m personally still yet to learn that coffee doesn’t really count on that front…

Pre-nights preparation is a bit of a personal endeavour. You’ll need to do a bit of trial and error to find out how to do your sleep schedule so it feels manageable. Just make sure you have black out blinds or a good eye mask before you start!

Be very mindful of tiredness. You are significantly more prone to errors, so just double check your prescriptions and investigation requests. Be very mindful of whether you are safe to travel home if you are driving, particularly if a long drive. If not, tell the morning consultant.

If your workload is feeling unmanageable, check in with your SHO or reg. They will be able to help you with prioritisation or taking some tasks off you. Even if it’s just a recognition from a senior that the workload is high and some things will need to be handed over, that’s okay.

Following above, if you’re on a ward for a reason, check in with the nurses to see if there is anything else they anticipate they’ll need before leaving - might save you being bleeped back half an hour later for something you could sort then.

Prioritise your workload. There may be things that you are required to do that are clinically urgent, but the majority of tasks as the FY1 will be things that don’t need to happen right then and there, so you can bunch tasks together for efficiency.

You’re probably not going to have developed a good sense of what to say ‘no’ to as yet - that is fine, that’s part of the learning. If you’re asked to do something that feels like it can safely wait until morning ask your SHO or Reg.

YouTube video called LION HEART | Epic Powerful Motivation Orchestral Music | Song... Epic Music Mix • 1.9M views • 1 year ago 64 chapters

When we were coming into the room they had this playing on YouTube to greet us

Unlike purists such as yourself who know it is not to be enjoyed so much as endured.

A curious suggestion sold poorly. I suspect I’ll pass, but who knows

This is overly reductive to the problem. What we have is a lack of specialty training posts AND insufficient recompense to retain specialists. So we are simultaneously not producing enough specialists while also unable to hold on to enough of those we do train.

Oh Shogun was incredible. I’m actually quite jealous that you get to watch it for the first time.

It’s a terrific listen, just make sure to take an antihypertensive first

It’s an absolutely awful story. Have you listened to the BBC podcast on it with her friends and family? Truly awful awful stuff.
I hope that woman gets everything that she deserves.

This has brought me joy, now it has brought you joy as well 😂

Pre-op for a woman in her late 80s, in fabulous health and looked a good 10 years younger.
Explained her dentures would come out for the op, she says “you’ll give them back won’t you?”
I say of course and she says without hint of joke/irony “oh phew! I wouldn’t want to look like an old woman now!”

Absolutely. And I agree as a tool in the arsenal it can be helpful but this obsession with NEWS as a be all and end all marker of sick vs not sick is not useful.

I also have a rant about the over-A-to-E-ification of medicine but I will save readers my ire for another time

I now try and keep an eye on those patients with signs like sweating, pallor, mottling, unexplained tachypnoea etc with otherwise normal parameters. I fear the sick-looking but numerically-okay patient that is left unobserved.

While I appreciate that vibes based assessments will always have false positives, I completely agree that we ignore the qualitative information at our own (and sadly more so patients’) peril.

Recall a formative and sad case early in my career of desperately trying to escalate a case who just looked sicker and sicker with NEWS that didn’t budge from 2 until falling in total heap which is when people were suddenly interested.

And Raj, there are also a number of private universities.

What’s really going to blow your mind is that most universities also have charitable status…

Predominantly I would say public as they have historically been public organisations receiving public funding.
But organisationally they are independent and also have non-public income streams.

The black hole itself is estimated to be around 66 billion solar masses. In terms of size, our Sun is 0.0003% the diameter of TON 618’s event horizon (not even the visible accretion disk).

TON 618 is so large that if it was in the place of our nearest stellar neighbour, Alpha Centuri which is over 4 light years away, it would appear in our sky about the same size of the sun. But with around 1900 times the brightness of our sun. From 4 light years away. We’d be fried.

Something to make you feel small today.
TON 618 is one of the largest black holes ever discovered. It is so massive that the accretion disk (the disk of superheated material orbiting a black hole at high speeds emitting light) is over a light year in diameter.

Thank you Emily. To be honest I was impressed (and surprised) that the college agreed to publish it!

presents a very real risk of intense prejudice. The fear of this will no doubt cause many trans people to withdraw from elements of public life. I recall with horror how a trans friend, ill with Covid during the first wave - when mortality predictions were frighteningly high - didn't go to hospital. The fear of discrimination for being transgender was greater than the fear of this deadly new virus. Such fear among trans people is now escalating dramatically. Allyship is not a title or role that can be assumed on a personal whim. One can only be an ally by continually practising allyship. Rainbow imagery, such as badges and lanyards, is good for visibility. However, in a time when equality is sliding away from our community, symbolism alone is simply not enough. While the LGBTQ+ community has faced fairer weather in years gone by, now, as we traverse more turbulent waters, we need our advocates and allies to stand up the most. Allyship cannot be demonstrated only in fair weather. Without standing in solidarity when times are tough, allyship becomes mere

While the LGBTQ+ community has faced fairer weather in years gone by, now, as we traverse more turbulent waters, we need our advocates and allies to stand up the most. Allyship cannot be demonstrated only in fair weather. Without standing in solidarity when times are tough, allyship becomes mere performance. Will you commit to being an ally or a performer?

Bulletin: Summer 2025 Opinion Anaesthetists, advocacy and 'allyship' As I progress further into my anaesthetic career, I'm struck by the degree of advocacy undertaken by anaesthetists during patient journeys through healthcare.

Author: Dr Duncan McGregor, Anaesthetist in Training, North-West England; Ex-Chair of GLADD - The Association of LGBTQ+ Doctors and Dentists; Honorary Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and an LGBTQ+ Healthcare Activist Advocating for effective analgesia in labour and perioperative care; advocating for high-quality care by considering patients as a whole; often advocating for patients for whom no intervention may be in their best interests. Much of our work and training as anaesthetists is centred on ensuring that our patients are advocated for to receive the very best possible care wherever we're involved. However, for some of us, our advocacy work can involve other areas too. I've spent nearly 10 years in the field of LGBTQ+ health activism. While perhaps a blink in the eye to some in this area, it's been long enough for me to witness progress and, subsequently, regression of rights for and experiences of people in my community. In the decade from

people in my community. In the decade from 2013 to 2023 the number of reported hate crimes in the UK arising from sexuality and gender identity rose by 462% and 1,426% respectively. These are shocking statistics and paint a shameful picture for us to contend with. At the time of writing, the effects of the ruling by the UK Supreme Court reframing the protections of the Equality Act for transgender people are yet to be seen. The outcome, however, is likely to be regressive for the lives and liberties of transgender people. Subsequent, hastily released, guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission took a hardline approach to interpretation, recommending the exclusion of transgender people from gendered facilities such as changing rooms and toilets in workplaces and public buildings. For large numbers of transgender people, these are facilities they've used for many years. Transgender people now face a choice - to use facilities incongruent with their identity, or to be excluded from public life. For many trans people, the prospect of the implementation of this guidance, forcing them to utilise gendered facilities not in keeping with their lived gender, presents a very real risk of intense prejudice.

For those without a log in

Anaesthetists, advocacy and ‘allyship’ This article shows us that LGBTQ+ allyship is not a title or role that can be assumed on a personal whim.

Piece that I wrote for the @rcoanews.bsky.social blog for Pride month has been published.

This year, it felt important to talk about the very real threats facing our community and the importance of practicing advocacy and allyship.

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