Miles Mack: Homeopathic medicine… The jury is still out
As a young child I remember being taken to see a kindly, grey-haired doctor called Dr McGowan to be treated for asthma.
Miles Mack
Patients and doctors given cause to pause
A couple of weeks ago, I came out of my consulting room to call my next patient. Further down the corridor I noticed a woman, who had just left a colleague’s room, standing quietly outside the closed door, her eyes unfocused, her hand on the door frame for support. My first instinct was to approach her and ask if she was all right. Had she been given bad news? I hesitated, realising she needed to take a private moment to collect her thoughts.
Dr Miles Mack: If we help people slim their bodies, it will be a weight off their minds too
So, you don’t want to talk about your weight? I’m not surprised and believe me, I share your discomfort.
Dr Miles Mack: I’ve got the needle about the new GP contract – because it might mean others don’t
“What did that nasty Dr Mack just do to you?”
Dr Miles Mack: Being awake through the night is a frequent cause of misery and weekend lie-ins will not help
I am just back from three days away in the great outdoors.
Dr Miles Mack: Taking great pains is vital in best helping those with chronic conditions
For the last few days I have been somewhat grumpy.
Miles Mack: Life-changing services for rural areas need not be such a remote possibility
Writing in these pages recently, Jim Hunter told of the desire of many young people to make their lives in rural communities.
Dr Miles Mack: GP and PC make a great team, so long as they do not become inseparable
A couple of years ago I spent a day at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, shadowing a hospital colleague. It had been over 20 years since I had worked there as a senior house officer in the medical unit and I felt it was time to familiarise myself with the services as experienced by all the patients I had referred there over the years.
Miles Mack: Modern life leaves us woefully unprepared to deal with death.
I have no difficulty finding the house as I have been visiting here with increasing frequency over the last months.
Dr Miles Mack: Psoriasis, poetry and the need to treat illness as well as disease
With the best will in the world, the annual conference of the Royal College of General Practitioners can be a dry affair.
Getting patients taped: the benefits of GPs slowing down and being more inquisitive
I’d forgotten how massive VHS videos are. And how satisfying the whirring sound when you load one into a video player and press fast-forward.
Emotional labour: ‘I have no shame in showing a damp eye’
Stepping out of the patient’s house and down the path I could feel tears welling up. By the time I reached the car I was sobbing.
Knocking on the wrong door: how red tape has become the enemy of GP home visits
I arrive at a home visit, doctor’s bag in one hand, computer summary printout in the other, and knock.
Miles Mack’s column: A fishy tale from the surgery waiting room
In a fish tank at Dingwall Heath Centre lives a goldfish named Orange.
Solving the rural health crisis: do the answers lie in a 106-year-old report?
In many ways, 2018 has not been the best year.
Familiarity breeds content – why the personal link with GPs is vital to the nation’s health
Last month marked 25 years of me being a partner at Dingwall Medical Group, astonishingly, consulting from the same room throughout all those years.
Promoting health by making connections
Erica was on dessert duty at Lunch Club.
GPs are the bread and butter of the NHS
“So, are you just a GP?”