On my living room wall is a poster – the poster in the photograph – and it perches there, displaying its stupefying complexity to anyone who walks by. I’m not sure why it gets pride of place on my wall when surely an elegant print would do better, but I love to be reminded of…

Edvard Munch is the artist for our times, isn’t he? If the year 2020 were a painting, it would have to be The Scream. We are hoping 2021 will be more serene, but who knows what horrors may be lying in wait. You are all intimately familiar with the fearful, crazed iconography of Munch’s masterpiece:…

There are few drugs that make me sing while stopping those in front of me doing the same in the way droperidol does. To be less obtuse, I mean that droperidol is a superb and unsurpassed tool in our pharmaceutical shed. It is a sophisticated instrument, a focussed dart, a brilliant drug for gaining control…

Some pathologies are like fiends, lurking in shadows, often unseen, and certainly under-recognised. Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is one of those. Although there’s nothing new about NFS as an act of violence and control, it is only recently that we as clinicians have understood what makes it unique. All around the world, legislation is falling into…

  We’re all talking a good deal about the immune system these days. Explaining the difference between T cells and B cells to our parents, elaborating on the nuances of the cellular versus humoral response to our friends. Most of the cell lines are getting a good rap. Thank goodness for adaptive immunity, we opine…