Tim Ricketts @timricketts_ Twitter profile

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Tim Ricketts

1 year

I’m just a Junior Doctor, standing in front of a Health Secretary, asking him to pay me as much as a Junior Doctor 15 years ago

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Last Seen Profiles

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

This is the most NHS thing I’ve ever read in my life

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

There’s something a bit baffling about a patient in hospital with covid who is unvaccinated because “I don’t believe in modern medicine”, but wants to be for full escalation and ITU. Do they think ITU treatment is based on the four humours and healing crystals?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

“Encourage oral fluid intake” I write in the notes, having not had a drink for 6 hours

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Can anyone explain the argument for NHS privatisation? The way I see it, demand will be the same, it’ll just have more money. Where will that money come from? Consumers. So the only change is that people pay more for their healthcare, which we could have achieved via taxation

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Schrodinger's junior doctor: simultaneously too important to strike, but not important enough to pay them properly

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

GPs earning over £156,000 will have to declare their earnings next year, no doubt in an attempt to shame them. Can you imagine if the partners of a law firm were forced to publically declare their take home? There is such a weird stigma around making money in healthcare

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

4 months

How am I spending my strike day? Revising for a professional exam that’s mandatory for my progression, that I paid ~£450 for, and only 50% pass. If I fail, I have to pay again. Doctors pay is inadequate for our level of training, but worse when you consider the fees we pay

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Me: so you’re on furosemide, entresto, spironolactone and ramipril. Do you take your medications regularly? Patient: of course I do Doc The patient:

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

I absolutely hate it when people refer to patients as “service users”. Feels inhuman and dystopian. Not as bad as “clients” though. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think patient is a more compassionate term

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

3 years

Is Passmedicine trying to make me cry?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Infection control be like:

Anna Pigott 🔶

@ajpigott_anna

1 year

Best question I’ve been asked as CD, are alpacas allowed to visit PICU… ?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

A top secret doctors don’t want you to know: we write “loose stools”because we can’t spell diarrhoea

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Was just chatting to an HCA and a ward sister about our bank holiday hourly rates today. The HCA is on £24 an hour. I’m on £13.80. We’re mugs, aren’t we?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

This article is massively disingenuous, bordering on malicious. I’ll break it down step by step. Brace yourselves, it’s yet another 🧵1/?

BBC Health News

@bbchealth

1 year

Why are doctors demanding the biggest pay rise?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

There’s a lot of confusion about junior doctors at the moment. Who are they? How much are they paid? Why are they striking? I’m a junior doctor, and thought I’d do a thread on the topic, so that people can link to it when someone spouts misinformation A 🧵

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

What’s so amusing about the whole thing, is that even after pay restoration, doctors are a bargain. Whether it’s £28ph or £35ph, both are a joke for an ST8 Neurosurgeon. This country just doesn’t understand how much the NHS is subsidised by underpaying it’s staff

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

This absolute weapon was in front of me in the queue for airport security at 4:30am this morning. Took the picture to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

My medical special interest is annual leave

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

To everyone complaining that the consultant strike is unsafe, where is your anger about Christmas day every year? Were you angry about the coronation bank holiday? Or is it not actually about safety, and more because you just don’t like the idea of striking

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

PSA: always announce your presence before walking through a patients curtain into their bed space. Especially if their partner is visiting. Even if they’ve had a life threatening emergency recently.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Today I found out my trust has dropped the routine use of the white plastic apron… I’ll be honest, I shed a tear of joy

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

I’ve been told my last thread on #TipsForNewDocs was too sensible, so I’ve decided to correct this. 1) When starting on your ward, it’s important to assert dominance. Sit on the ward clerks chair, and when you get called out, say nothing and stare them out.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Oh to be a fly on the wall on strike day when a discharge coordinator bleeps the on call FY1 bleep to do a TTO when it’s the consultant cardiologist holding it

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

“If doctors aren’t happy with their pay, they should get a different job” Yeah, we are. This is the most striking graph I’ve seen so far regarding the retention of doctors. Full pay restoration or watch the graph turn blue

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

I love the symbiosis between juniors and consultants. Consultants draw upon decades of experience to make plans, carry out impressive technical procedures, give advice and assume ultimate responsibility. Juniors help them when they can’t work the computers

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

5 months

Based on some recent conversations, I felt like a thread was needed on some of the issues surrounding medical training, and how they intersect with the long term workforce plan. Buckle in for a long one 1/14 🧵

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

3 years

The smartest person in any theatre is the anaesthetist. Not because of any difference in intellect or academic prowess, but because they’ve chosen the career that gets them best access to a chair

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

Nadine Dorries would have definitely been the kind of nurse who would bleep a doctor about an unwell patient, wait 30 seconds then document in the notes “patient unwell, doctor not responding to bleeps” then go on her break

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

People often ask what’s the worst thing I’ve seen as a doctor, or what’s shaken me the most. Truthfully, it was watching a medical student drink seven raw eggs for dinner last week whilst on call, then him saying that he does it daily. Unhinged doesn’t scratch the surface

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Doctors who are in full time training but have children: I have no idea how you do it. I can just about look after myself whilst working/training full time, adding in children would probably break me.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

My main take home from nights is that medical registrars are the most underpaid staff in the hospital

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

In my opinion, university is the best place to learn the anatomy, physiology etc that is required to be a doctor. Want to improve access to medicine? Improve funding for those studying undergraduate/postgraduate medical degrees. Apprenticeships aren’t a good fit for medicine

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

An actual on call room?! No more sleeping on the crusty mess sofa for me

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

I’ve given the PE case some thought. One of the main diagnostic take homes I’ve taken from two years of doctoring, is that PE is one of the most humbling diagnoses out there. Anyone who says they’ve never made a mistake in medicine is either lying or mistaken. 1/8

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Louis is me, Kate is my consultant who asked me to write a discharge summary for a patient who had been in for five months who I’d never met

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Throwback to this time last year, when I called the on call haematologist one evening to get some advice, and when I got through he was at a choir recital. He insisted on holding the phone up to the choir so I could hear it before giving me any advice

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

9 months

Did a random locum today and saw a few people I had clerked last week on nights. One chap said “I remember you, you saved my life”. I just recognised the problem and arranged the required procedure, but still, what a feeling. When it’s good, medicine is really good

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

I see we’ve reached the point where medtwitter is debating whether doctors save lives. You honestly couldn’t make this up. Every time I think we’ve reached our most unserious, we manage to top it. I guess the surgeons who cut out my perfed appendix didn’t save my life? Honestly..

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 months

First choice job accepted ✅ It’ll be bitter sweet leaving the amazing @RUHBath , but I’m going home! Infinite misery training, come at me

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Today I found out the answer to the question “what happens if the cardiac arrest bleep goes off whilst you’re on the toilet”

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

4 months

To anyone who passed a postgraduate exam whilst working full time: I’m in awe of you If you have kids as well… how did you defy the laws of space and time?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

@LarcombePeter @BrendanBrowne91 Scal/pel

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

98%?! Let’s goooo

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Do you know what that sound is? It’s a union resurrecting itself

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

You know what’s mad? That SALT don’t work weekends on a Hyper Acute Stroke Unit. Absolutely absurd.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Filling out prescriptions for psych meds, and saw someone was born in 2001. Thought “shouldn’t this person be under CAMHs?” The patient is 21. I’m in distress

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Nice to find out that Ivory Tower management get nice sleeping pods and thousand pound coffeee machines. Meanwhile, in DGH land, I sleep on a crusty sofa in a dingey mess. Resurrecting this video because it cracks me up every time I watch it

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

If I had a penny for every time a physio I’ve dated has broken up with me and started seeing one of my friends, I’d have two pennies. It’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice this year

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Can you imagine if you worked at a bank, and the bank insisted that you bring your own pens into work… The NHS is a weird organisation man

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

It’s clear to me that many (including many HCPs) just don’t understand the role and responsibilities of a doctor. It should be mandatory for every healthcare worker to shadow an FY1 on a weekend ward cover/night shift. I think they might sing a different tune afterwards

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

11 months

It probably says everything about the current work load for junior doctors that all of the peers I know look forward to strike days just for some time off, despite it being unpaid

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Wait until the public find out what it costs to get American/Canadian/Australian consultants to do extra contractual night shifts. The NHS is subsidised by underpaying it’s staff

Consultants want up to £262 an hour to cover strike days for junior doctors

NHS bosses criticise pay demand for consultants to provide emergency care during junior doctors' walkout.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

I’ve just heard about a PA working on a reg rota. Am I mad for thinking that this has all got a bit far now? We all know that they’re valuable members of the team, but at a certain point we just need to put some boundaries down. Want to be a doctor? Go to med school

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

On today’s episode of weekend ward cover: “doctor, can you come and have a look at this rash on the patients face. It’s been there since June last year”

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

25 days

Can someone tell me why I’m spending my evenings after work studying for expensive MRCP exams? It seems like having MRCP, or indeed having any formal medical training is completely unnecessary to perform complex procedures like UGIB endoscopy. I feel like a mug

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

My ward has a bit of a reputation for being *that ward*. Came in this morning to find out someone had tried to set their cannula on fire overnight

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

11 months

I’m sick of the disrespect levelled at our profession by this government. What the hell would they know about how long it takes to become a doctor? All they’re doing is turning the U.K. into a Dr production line for other English speaking countries

Major change to nursing and doctor degrees in bid to plug NHS shortages

Critics warn the move would put patient safety at risk and even drive potential recruits away from NHS

www.independent.co.uk

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

The first time I did CPR, resuscitation efforts had been going on for 20 minutes by the time I got on the chest. At that point, there was no structural integrity of his ribs at all. After it was called, I tried to go back to work, but ended up going to the toilets to cry. 1/2

Nicole Trauma Llama APRN, CNS

@TraumaSoapBoxes

1 year

If you’ve never seen CPR REAL CPR It’s brutal When it’s someone you know The emotional trauma is astronomical

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

11 months

Suncream is wild because we have this thing that protects against skin cancer and keeps you looking younger for longer, but people are like “nah I’ll take the cancer and I’m happy to look like a shoe by my early forties, as long as I can be a bit darker now”.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

27 days

For me it’s definitely non clinical members of staff walking around wards telling clinical staff that they need to discharge any patients that can be discharged

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Was minding my own business getting changed in theatres today, and a general surgical consultant I’d never met before grilled me on why I’d had an open rather than laprascopic appendicectomy. I dunno man, take it up with the Derriford general surgeons from 9 years ago

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

6 months

It’s been said before, but this is really silly isn’t it. Paying quite a lot of money to *attempt* an exam with a high failure rate that’s mandatory for progression. All of my friends in other industries get their exams paid for, surely we should get our first sit paid for?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

3 years

What’s the most underrated healthcare profession and why is it pharmacy?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Remember, consequences are for individuals, not for organisations #UKFPO #SJT

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

5 months

I applied to IMT this year, the competition ratio has gone up by 43% in one year. If I see one more person say “there’s enough work to go around”, I may fully lose it. We’re fighting each other like dogs for these posts, when there are gaps on every rota around the country

platinumpizza™

@Xeon4f145d96s1

5 months

IMT ratio is now 4:1. There are no locum posts. Either short or long term. What are FY2s supposed to do?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Not sure who needs to hear this, but not every elderly person who’s pyrexic/delirious/not coping at home has a UTI

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Want to know how bad NHS IT is? 75% of my tweets are sent whilst waiting for a computer to load.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

When you go to close the curtain around the patient and it glides along the rails with no resistance

Ed

@EdSWPara

2 years

Today I did two of the most satisfying things in Emergency Medicine, relocated a shoulder and a ‘pulled elbow’ 🏥 What are your top two most satisfying things?!

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

To everyone commenting “didn’t happen”, fine, we don’t know if we did or it didn’t. But please stop commenting, it’s clogging up my mentions. Thanks Xx

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

You all asked and I’ll deliver. I matched with a girl on an app, and she instantly messaged me, asking if I wanted to meet up for wine + film. I had just finished an on call at work, so politely declined as it was late. Didn’t hear anything for the next two days. 1/?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

3 years

Not usually one for this sort of thing, but feeling pretty proud today. Dr Tim Ricketts MBChB (Hons) MSc. Nice

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

I’m no cardiologist, but this seems like too much troponin to me

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Have you noticed that it’s always consultants who are against striking. People who didn’t have £9000 a year fees, people who have a house already (and perhaps a second), and who often have tidy private practice side gigs. Plus, ignoring the evidence that strikes don’t cause harm

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Student loans are a big reason why things are bad for my generation. Why? My current effective marginal tax rate is 47%. Half of new income gone. When I breach 50k a year, my marginal rate will be 67%. I’ll only see a third of the money I make over 50k. The U.K hates the young

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

When you have enough staff, medicine can be so much fun

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

4 months

The jobs of a medical registrar: Seeing acutely unwell patients Supervising their junior colleagues Pest control Catering issues

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

The age old debate in a junior doctors head: do I like the specialty, or do I just really like the team?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 months

Doctors have our issues, but the way this country treats medical students is nothing short of disgraceful. Not only are we randomly allocating our future doctors to random parts of the country against their will, we’re also randomly assigning some to a wait list. This is cruel

Nawal

@NawalYousaf_

2 months

Despite 6 years of medical school and never failing a single exam, I got put on a waiting list for a job… So disappointing @UKFPO

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

@alex_abads Also amusing when your exes appear there I get it, I was punching, no need to rub it in

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

I hate seeing Doctors downplay what we do. Medicine is incredibly difficult. I don’t think it’s as conceptually difficult as something like physics, but the volume of information we need to recall, and the ability to think clearly in high pressure situations are high level skills

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

@tomhfh I just don’t understand how anyone who works as a journalist could fail to grasp such simple concepts. The government’s treatment of the NHS is causing actual tangible harm to patients, and we have run out of ways to make our feelings known. It’s this or mass resignations

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 months

MRCP part 1 ✅ See you never, lysosomal storage diseases

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Keir Starmer announces new plan to make the U.K the worlds biggest exporter of doctors to other countries

Keir Starmer

@Keir_Starmer

1 year

You should be able to get a GP appointment when you need one. Labour will end the postcode lottery for GP appointments, training 7,500 more doctors a year and guaranteeing face-to-face appointments. Vote Labour on Thursday 4 May to cut waiting times.

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Something I think about a lot is how doctors will give a family the worst news of their lives, with the emotional labour that entails, and then put a different face on to give the next patient positive news/send them home. I find it exhausting. O and G must be the worst for this

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

I often think about how the extreme environmental impact of hospitals. The easiest way we can make a difference? Don’t have the radiators in every corridor running at full blast in the middle of May…

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

10 months

Why are productivity gurus always blokes in their thirties with either no dependants or very supportive partners. I’d much rather hear from a single parent who works a full time job, or someone who cares for a family member whilst staying sane. They’re the impressive ones

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

4 months

Why isn’t ear micro suction funded by the NHS? A 15 minute intervention that can reverse deafness for relatively low cost (when compared to some of our treatments). I haven’t seen data but the number needed to treat must be almost 1… The best money I’ve ever spent

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

Had a patient today complaining that it was hard to see his GP, and thinks that it’s because GPs only work 3 days a week. Had to explain that a typical GP partner works 12 hours a day, and that those who don’t are burnt out. The right wing press have a lot to answer for

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

Media medics, know your limitations please. Leave the professionals to it

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

5 months

Consultant Registrar Locum SHO FY1

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

4 months

Senior medical figures from around the world are incredulous at what is happening to U.K medicine. We should all be embarrassed

AMA President

@amapresident

4 months

What is going on in the UK???🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 #NHSCrisis @TheBMA

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

9 months

Locum doctors, do the right thing

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

I’ve rotated to a hospital that’s an hours drive from my house/base hospital, often 25% longer. I just don’t know how people do this for years with rotational training, it’s knackering. Is it bad that GP is starting to look more attractive just so I can stay in the same place?

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

We will get a job that pays more. It’s called “Junior Doctor in Australia”

🇵🇸

@fatima_medic

1 year

“Well go get a job that pays more”. Thanks so much for vandalising the sign, will take you up on your advice!!

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

@YodaCCP Weird how the NHS was the most efficient healthcare system in Europe (and the world?) in 2010 though

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

By popular request, I thought I might start this years #TipsForNewDocs U.K. edition 1) When you’re on call, you don’t need to do everything. No, that Vitamin D is not urgent and does not need chasing overnight. Learn what needs doing and what can wait for the day team

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

5 months

Our pay is less than other professions, our OOH burden is greater and our progression is becoming more difficult. When we try to talk about it, we’re called elitist and asked to “be kind”. If people took the time to understand the situation, they might be kind themselves 14/14

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

2 years

If working in healthcare has taught me anything, people who make it to 80+ without any major health issues have lead an unbelievably charmed life. You open their clerking booklet and see “nil” in their past medical history and think “who did you make a deal with”

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Tim Ricketts

@timricketts_

1 year

I can’t believe people are even talking about not being able to buy a beer at the World Cup when you can be locked up for practicing homosexuality. Humanity just has no sense of priority at any level

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