Messy Business

My favourite bit of Touching the Void, a scary but ultimately uplifting mountaineering film, is when our hero reflects on his impending death.

Joe Simpson has fallen down a mountainside, breaking various bits of his body, before crawling for several days through crevasse fields without food or water.

He’s about to die, and half expects a moment of profound insight before he passes. Instead all he gets is Boney M’s Brown Girl in the Ring playing over and over again in his mind. He doesn’t even like Boney M.

CPR is the reason I mention this. Bear with me, there is a link of sorts.

As far as I’m aware, Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees is the internal song of choice when compressing the chest of a heart attack victim, which is more than a little ironic. If you do use this tune, ask yourself this important question: is it always internalised? Or, in the heat of the moment, do you start murmuring it?

Other CPR tunes include Nelly the Elephant, Disco Science (no, I hadn’t heard of it either but then I don’t get out much) - which is apparently the best - and a well known number by Billy Ray Cyrus.

Please God, don’t let me die listening to a whispered version of Achy Breaky Heart.

Anyway, the research suggests it’s all a waste of time so no more disco tunes - you know who you are.

However, no one is going to stop me dancing arrhythmias. It doesn’t help my clinical practise - after all I’m not a doctor - but I just like it, OK! (And here’s a more modern version.)

It just doesn’t pay to be too honest in the good old Nash.

So many times we write things that simply pay lip service to a regulation or bureaucrat. But occasionally we don’t and all hell breaks loose.

As someone in HR at the Royal Liverpool Hospital is about to find out.

At the bottom of a published advert for a trainee anaesthetist was the following statement about adding “the usual rubbish about equal opportunities”.

Oops. Someone should have proofed that copy. Cue inquiry.

A trust spokeswoman confirmed that an investigation has been launched. She said: “The wording on this advert in no way reflects the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust’s position in relation to equal opportunities, to which it is fully committed.”

Thank God that’s been cleared up. I can sleep easy now.

The consequences of saving someone’s life are profound, though sometimes a little obscure.

Dr Michael Rigby is a consultant paediatric cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital and in the course of his work successfully treated the daughter of musician Elio Pace, when she was just a few days old.

It saved her life and Elio was determined to recognise Dr Rigby’s contribution in some way. After much persistence, Dr Rigby agreed to a ‘thank you’ in the shape of piano lessons.

He had trained to grade 5 in classical piano but wanted to learn boogie-woogie. It turned out to be Elio’s forte, and now Dr Rigby is rather good at it. So good, in fact, that they did their first gig recently to raise funds for the hospital.

“Considering he is such a talented musician, when it comes to teaching, he has a wonderful ability to keep things simple and make it fun. I never forget his tips and advice,” Dr Rigby says.

The good doctor might even support Elio on his forthcoming nationwide tour in September.

Now that’s how to hit a heart warming ‘thank you’ note….(sorry).

Jacky Davis, consultant radiologist, co-chair of the NHSCA, BMA council member and Hospital Dr blogger, definitely won ‘the best turn of phrase award’ at the BMA’s annual representatives meeting.

She’s been one of the loudest voices in the campaign against the coalition government’s NHS reforms, but she really pulled out all the speech writing stops last week when she said the Bill would still lead to the privatisation of the NHS.

“We are being sold a respray job, two write offs welded together, and we need to look under the paintwork to see what’s there.”

She swiftly moved from car analogies to more melodramatic ones, reminding the audience that the Bill was originally christened ‘Lansley’s monster’ by the BMJ.

“The politicians took it away, slapped on some lipstick and asked us to embrace it,” she said. “But a monster with lipstick is still a monster. It needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice.”

It must have worked - delegates voted for the BMA leadership to push for more change. But surely the Royal Society for the Protection of Political Monsters should be made aware of her ruthless intentions…