4th May 2026 Newsletter Monday Charging at 80% Reader Red light therapy is having a moment. Masks. Panels. Beds. All promising some version of: “skin rejuvenation” “faster healing” “joint recovery” It’s one of those trends that starts small… and then quietly expands its job description. Way back when... It reminded me of being a kid around 1987/88, I’d have been about 9 or 10. My brief quest to be a gymnast and follow in the footsteps of Nadia Comăneci (having watched the film Nadia, on a...
9 days ago • 2 min read
27th April 2026 Newsletter Monday Reader I’ve not been able to stop thinking about an article in New Scientist last week. It described a study looking at dental care in hospital patients. The results haven’t been fully published yet - they were presented at a conference - so I’m not going to get carried away with the headline. But that’s not really the point. The study itself was large. Around 8,800 patients across several hospitals. It was a randomised trial looking at whether improving oral...
16 days ago • 2 min read
20th April 2026 Newsletter Monday When you've got to go, where do you go? Reader I’ve scrolled past a lot of headlines this week. War. Politics. The usual loud, urgent, attention-grabbing noise. And then I stopped on one about… public toilets. Which got my attention mostly because it’s so ordinary. I am more concerned with ordinary than international politics, if I’m honest. So whilst this sounds deeply unremarkable, it isn’t - if you’ve spent any time actually listening to patients. It’s...
23 days ago • 3 min read
13th April 2026 Newsletter Monday The right tools for the right job I am going to make a prediction that a lot of people reading this newsletter have, at some point, used a steroid cream on their skin. Not because I possess any mystical powers, but because they’ve been around for decades and the conditions they’re used for are very common. If you’ve spent any time in general practice, they are part of the everyday toolkit. With that in mind, a BBC News article caught my attention this...
30 days ago • 3 min read
6th April 2026 Newsletter Monday Tiny Tablet: Huge Opinions You know when something irks you because you keep seeing it misunderstood? That’s how I feel when I read medical records that list high cholesterol as a medical problem. High cholesterol is not a disease. And yet, I still see it written in patients’ past medical history as if it sits alongside heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, by doctors that should know this. It takes every ounce of restraint not to reach for a red pen and cross...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
30th March 2026 Newsletter Monday How did we evolve without this? Hello Reader, I have to talk about what I keep seeing. Not a single headline this week. Just a pattern that keeps repeating until you can’t unsee it. There’s a term for it: audience capture. It’s what happens when someone builds trust by being clear, sensible and evidence-based… and then slowly starts shaping their message around what that audience wants to hear — or what will sell. And it’s not just influencers. I’m seeing it...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
23rd March 2026 Newsletter Monday Winner Hello Reader, There’s an article trending this morning that I couldn’t resist clicking on. I suppose that’s exactly why it’s trending 😆 How long should you be able to stand on one leg for your age. I’ve no doubt many of you would struggle to resist that either. It’s so simple. So measurable. And we’re all quietly comparing ourselves to where we should be, even when we wish we wouldn’t. But it reminded me of a real-life test I did a few days ago. A...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
16th March 2026 Newsletter Monday A rare sight - an empty bed There were two stories competing for my attention this week. At first they felt unrelated. The more I thought about them, the more they seemed to describe the same problem from two different angles. The first was the moral outrage that has erupted over the prospect of NHS England paying around £330 million to a US tech company for software designed to improve hospital efficiency. The anger seems to have focused largely on the...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
9th March 2026 Newsletter Monday Chicken anyone? Hello Reader, This week England’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said something that will probably irritate both sides of the obesity debate. He said that relying on weight-loss injections to solve obesity would represent a societal failure. That comment will annoy people for different reasons. Some will hear it as criticism of GLP-1 drugs. It isn’t. These medications are life-changing for some individuals. I work with people who use them...
2 months ago • 3 min read