INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my Blog.

I'm a British GP with a fascination for the ethical issues which come through our surgery day by day, and which go unnoticed in the news media. I've started this blog as a way to raise the profile,in the UK and elsewhere, of these issues which so often get overlooked in favour of sexier things like assisted suicide and embryo research. (in case you want to know I'm against the former and for the latter, but I won't spoil the purity of this as a primary care blog by discussing why)

Of course doing this raises a major (ethical) problem and paradox. The raw material of medical ethics is encounters with patients, but we can't discuss real patients because it would be unethical! Fortunately after twenty-five years in practice I have a muddy field of memories which include few specific cases but form what I believe is called faction - realistic but not real cases. So my current patients can be assured that they will not be starring in this blog; nor will anyone else's. All contributions will be carefully screened to make sure that they discuss general issues rather than particular individuals.

My particular fascination is with requests for medical reports (see paper earlier this year in the BMJ which I will link to when I work out how) and virtue ethics, and the notion of the flourishing patient and doctor.(another link to be inserted). I'm an Anglican and an Aristotelean, and have been known to vote Lib Dem, so you can imagine that I am pretty middle of the road in most things.

I'd like this blog to turn into a discussion, so please send your contributions to peterdtoon@gmail.com. as well as adding your comments


Alongside this blog experiment I am trying to organise a primary care ethics interest group as part of the Society of Academic Primary Care, so if you are interested in that please contact me.