Seasonal Offerings

October's air hangs heavy with a sense of culmination and finality. Sometimes frosty carrying the scent of chimney smoke across a park lit by the last rays of indian summer sunshine. Sometimes moist with the scent of rotting leaves, returning to the earth, particle by particle, melting into layers of soil. The summer's sunshine is distilled and concentrated to the deepest oranges, reds and pinks of fallen leaves, every drop falling to the ground and burning like embers of golden fire against the green, the grey, the black of the canvas provided by lawns, fields, pavements and roads. Things are dying, ending their lives. Nights draw in, heading into the dark tunnel of winter.

But alongside rotting, decay, mulch and disintegration, the earth brings forth bumper crops of its finest efforts and full of life. Pumpkins, squash, marrow, beetroot, cauliflower, apples. Final offerings, a farewell gift. And a sense of saving the best til last. No more tentative sprouting salad leaves of spring, tender green vegetables of summer. Concentrated colours and flavours, bold and sensuous contours are autumn's signatures, a final flourish before heading underground to sprout the root vegetables of winter. I want to keep them in my hand, a source of warmth for the cold, dark, colourless, damp months to come. Frantically distilling them down to soups and curries to be frozen as a memoir for a later date. Curried Sweet Potato and Butterbean Soup, Purple Cauliflower and Roquefort, Borscht, Apple Pie with a Cheddar Crust, Cider Vinegar Muffins, Annapurna Daal Bhat... Squash Curry.



And as a I think of these things, pouring over recipe books for what to do with the season's produce... a 6 month old is gazing intently out the window from his seat at my feet. He's in my care for the afternoon and grumbled incessantly until I took him to the window to watch the light flicker through the trees. Mesmerized, he stares contentedly outwards and upwards, calm enough now to be put to rest in his chair by the window, facing out to the world. He's watching the patterns of the golden autumn light filter through the trees as they blow and shake in gusts of wind. He's watching the leaves spiral down from their lofty heights, dancing at ground level before coming to rest on piles on the grass. He's falling asleep with the light dappling his rosy baby face.

And elsewhere I see the culmination of seasons of growth. Day to day watching babies brought into the world, grown in a dark place for months, nourished and cared for and brought forth in a magnificent fashion when they are ripe and ready, I can't help but think of miraculous design, patterns, circles, rhythms, reasons.

But they come at all times of the day and night, all times of the year. And with slightly more risk and effort involved. I've not long finished my allocated week on delivery suite (so named to make it sound less medical than 'labour ward'). A week that I've looked forward to all my medical school career. And I did it in style, with multiple night shifts (including a Sunday night), 16 hour day shifts, lots of cups of coffee and basically wearing myself out. And it was worth it. I saw 8 beautiful babies blink their sticky eyes open to look at the world for the first time, and even managed to 'catch' an additional two myself.

It was a week of thinking, observing and reflecting... some of those thoughts are crystalising and will soon be ripe for publication. If you're interested, stay tuned.

Where's the Consultation?

Another good thing that happened over the summer was the publication of a report called 'Where's the Consultation' by the Global Health Advocacy Project.

In 2004, the Department of Health carried out a public consultation exploring proposals to deny access to primary healthcare to failed asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. The results of this consultation were never published and the department have resisted our attempts to bring them into the public domain.

This report summarises submissions to the Department of Health Consultation 'Proposals to Exclude Overseas Visitors from Eligibility to Free NHS Primary Medical Services'. It also details our ongoing attempts using the Freedom of Information Act to access a complete set of submissions to this important consultation.

To download the document in pdf format, please click here or see the Medsin Website.

The New Rules of the Blog

No blogs for 4 months... oops. And quite a lot has happened, there was the Iranian asylum saga during which I got face to face with the Home Office over an asylum case... (its an ugly face in case you were wondering), the epic trip to France by train (uncomfortable, but environmentally sound... or is it, where do I stand on nuclear?? Hrm...) involving a delicious quantity of rose wine and the best tomatoes I have ever tasted, the holiday in Scotland with swimming in ice cold rivers, the sea and the best seafood ever tasted... (and the rain), the last minute dash to Cheltenham for Greenbelt, and then finally (and ominously) The Return to the study of clinical medicine. Ussain Bolt's awesome 100m sprint was in there somewhere too. And it all went by so quickly.

I've been reluctant to blog. Mostly because my life is dominated by grossly mundane events, most of which take place inside a giant building with lots of beds (not as nice as hotel beds), sick people and not many windows. I have to live here, 1.5 hrs from home in Manchester, start early, finish late, do nights and weekends and spend lots and lots of time in the library.

I'm let out for the occasional day at weekends when I get to look at the outside world. But mostly I'm tired and don't have time to look. Consqequently, my soul has suffered a few little deaths. My guitar is mostly idle against the wall, my books on subjects other than medicine are gathering dust (which I don't have time to clean), my kitchen is lonely and longs to be cooked in, newspapers are unread... and my brain grinds to a halt. So if I were to blog, all there would be to blog about would be medicine. The patients I have seen, the diseases I have learned about, the wicked doctors, the nice doctors, the rude doctors...

Medicine isn't all that bad. I suppose. I mean, I dide choose it for myself after all, so I can't really complain. And people would probably like to hear about it. There is a fascination with the human body, with medicine and with the gruesome tales we medics are capable of, a fascination I can't explain. And I won't play into its hands, because actually, it's all quite boring really.

So perhaps the primary function of this blog from now on will be to force me to think of things other than hospital, patients, examinations, drugs, diseases, and treatments. Each week I will challenge myself to blog you something of a non-medical nature. There will be one exception - I'm reading a lot around pregnancy, childbirth and the medicalisation of what are essentially natural processes. Most of what I'm reading it's at total loggerheads with what the obstetric profession believe. And I'm about to start my Obstetrics training next week. So that could get interesting. But it's more anthropology than medicine, so we'll allow it.