Learning Curve archive for 2020
Phacogeddon
A trainee shortly to rotate to my firm was unhappy at the fact that she had only one phaco list in her timetable. She was a final year trainee with more than five hundred cataract extractions to her name so...
A glossary
After a week on call grading what feels like 13 billion referrals I decided it might be useful to come up with a glossary that might help other people in some way to decipher the true meaning behind every repetitive...
Virtual COVID clinics
The clinics at Ystradgynlais Community Hospital are a little different of late. The nurses are still there, I still get tea with custard creams and the letters I dictate are still all written up by the next day. But there...
Zoom
One of the side-effects of the coronavirus pandemic is that suddenly everything is now done on Zoom. In case anyone is fortunate enough to have no idea what this is, Zoom is an app that allows virtual meetings to take...
The 2020 Milgram Experiment
Will ophthalmology recover from COVID-19? Learning Curve columnist Gwyn Samuel Williams shares his thoughts on the developing impact of the pandemic “It’s busy today,” the nurse in green chuckles. “There are six patients I think.” Six. This clinic is designed...
The other side
Adele sings a song called Hello, which is about a mythical phonecall she makes to an ex-boyfriend about how different life is now compared to when they used to date. The chorus line repeated many times is “Hello from the...
Covid-19
I am writing this on 21 March 2020, and I am pretty confident that by the time you read this that whatever I say will already be hopelessly out of date. Plus, it’s only really what I think, and I...
Trainee personality types
Over the past two years I have attended quite a number of medical educational seminars and ‘workshops’ and have been a bit shocked at how out of kilter with reality the world of education seems to be now. It seems...
