What makes a career in emergency medicine feel fulfilling? Drawing on Maslow’s ideas, Simon Carley explores personal growth, the conditions needed to thrive at work and the satisfaction of helping others develop, while acknowledging the pressures that can undermine those ambitions.
As UK emergency medicine approached its fiftieth anniversary, Simon Carley used a midlife-crisis analogy to reflect on the specialty’s development. This 2016 essay considers professional identity, external pressures, career choices and the search for a satisfying working life, with a deliberately humorous edge.
Does repeating a skill make us better, or simply more practised at doing it the same way? Simon Carley explores deliberate practice through clinical, musical and sporting examples, emphasising focused tasks, feedback, reflection and coaching when time for learning is limited.
Does combining ketamine and propofol improve procedural sedation compared with propofol alone? This 2016 appraisal examines a systematic review’s complication findings, questioning how differences in patients, procedures and drug regimens—and limited information on sedation success—affect its relevance to emergency departments.
Should clinicians unlock an unconscious patient’s phone to help identify them? This 2016 ethical and legal discussion explores the tension between useful clinical information, privacy and consent, using a hypothetical emergency department case to ask whether access is necessary and what remains uncertain.
What happens when the patient is someone you know? Iain Beardsell and Liz Crowe discuss caring for community members, friends and colleagues, exploring confidentiality, declaring personal connections, professional boundaries and supporting a team when personal and clinical responsibilities collide.
Practical perspectives on trauma care and team leadership.
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