Good Pasta

It has indeed been a strange week. I discovered that my best friend from university is now a famous photographer. We had lost touch for more than 20 years and I was so proud of her. I realised what a difference she had made to my thinking patterns and how she potentially taught me to think out of the box. This is the wonderful thing about art students. They tend to view the world in a different way, a kind of beautiful way. My friend was known for her pasta. While she would wait for her one lecture a week, while the rest of us slogged our guts out in the lecture theatre, my friend ended up feeding all of us. Believe me, when you are tired and overworked, some good pasta does not go amiss. Out of the disastrous friendships I have experienced with doctors, my friendship with this girl was a welcome reminder of how good times were. The difference was that she did not judge me - just accepted me for who I was. That's important in any friendship. So, yes, I have fond memories and the more I contemplate my friendships with many art students, the more I realise that the medical culture was never suited to me. There is honestly something dysfunctional about it. I miss a certain type of person. The type of person that views the world with a pleasant, sympathetic eye rather than the crass vision developed through the medical lens. 

On the other side of the coin, I heard that another whistleblower was being prosecuted by the General Medical Council. I am still not sure what planet the GMC are on. Why on earth do they do this to honest, decent junior doctors. Doctors often believe that they will eventually be vindicated and wait patiently. That time never comes. As soon as the clawed hand touches your career, you are effectively finished. Any other view is essentially denial. In the end, the GMC does not look on whistleblowers with sympathy. Their modus operandi is to protect  the establishment. Yes, I am sad about this. I think some juniors deserve a break. The GMC does not share that viewpoint. Kindness is not in their vocabulary. This is what is so dysfunctional about them. The GMC would walk over the dead. Indeed, they frequently do.