Having moved from the UK to Maharashtra, India, in 1982, I subsequently moved from there to Nepal in 1991. From Nepal, I moved to West Bengal in 2001 and from there to Bangladesh in 2003. My last major geographical move was from rural Bangladesh to East Sussex in 2007. At...
Life is a journey, and an interesting one at that. It never stays the same and is often marked by transitions, some seamless, some challenging, but all taking us one step further along life's course.I graduated from the University of Ghana medical school in 1997, when specialty training in Ghana...
A couple of months after we visited the potential site for the ICMDA [1] National Institute of Health Sciences in Jonglei, South Sudan (NIHS) - a Christian training institute for South Sudanese health workers - civil war broke out across the country in December 2013. This seemed disastrous for an...
We are continually moulded by our experiences and our relationships. Most of the time, this is a slow and steady weathering. But then there are the landslides that reshape everything. Landslides can be triggered by both sorrowful and joyful events: serious illness, bereavement, new jobs, or having children. They can...
For the last two years, doctors in the UK have had to adapt to new pressures of work and to new ways of working because of the pandemic. The Covid pandemic seems to be moving into a new, less acute phase. Many doctors have delayed retirement or, having retired earlier,...
In my last article, [1] I outlined the birth of the Christian Medical Association in 1854, which led to the Medical Prayer Union in 1874. These associations of Christian doctors contained many who were great supporters of medical missionary work. But how and when did medical mission begin? This article...
Sung Chan Kwon, a missionary from Korea, recently wrote: When I became a missionary in 1992, I thought that I knew what mission was about. After more than 25 years of experience as a missionary, the more I participate in mission work the less I know what mission is.[1] The...
Fay and Martin's story [1] Siblings Fay (10) and Martin (11) were sleeping top to tail in their bed. Suddenly, the children woke in terror to a living nightmare when their visiting aunt and uncle doused them with petrol, struck a match, and set them alight. The aunt and uncle believed...
It happened at every changeover in August and February. Would any of my new colleagues be Christians? How long would it take to find out if any of the staff on my ward shared my faith? Maybe, like me, you look around our increasingly secular landscape and feel oddly alone....
Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia John Dunlop MD Crossway, 2017, £10, 208pp, ISBN: 9781433552090 Reviewed by Ruth Eardley, a GP in Market Harborough and a member of the Triple Helix editorial committee Dementia, dignity, and honouring God. How these three unlikely bedfellows are not mutually exclusive but, in God's economy, entirely...
The week of 6-12 September 2022 will long be held up as one of the most noteworthy ones in the recent history of the United Kingdom. We started the week with one Prime Minister and the Queen; we finished it with a new Prime Minster and a new King. The...
'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is...
At the end of July, it was announced that the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock would be closing. [1] This was confirmed in August by Dr Hilary Cass in a post on the website of the Cass Review (the NHS England independent review into gender identity services...
The World Medical Association (WMA) is close to the end of a lengthy revision process of its International Code of Medical Ethics (ICoME). Originating in 1949 as a companion to its Declaration of Geneva, the ICoME has undergone various revisions. [1] Concern arose in 2021 when the draft revision included the...
A heart-rending series of legal disputes surrounding twelve-year-old Archie Battersbee was fought not only in the courts but also amidst a blaze of media coverage. Archie was discovered unconscious at home by his mother following a presumed online challenge involving self-asphyxiation, resulting in a cardiac arrest. His heart was restarted...
Anyone in clinical practice knows that wealth impacts health and vice versa. Despite having a healthcare system free at the point of need, the poor still have worse health than the wealthy. [1], [2] We are amid a cost-of-living crisis due in part to the supply chain chaos in the wake...