This collection of stories from two practising GPs describes the reality of working within a failing and highly bureaucratic system, where there is a balancing act: regulation versus relationships; autonomy versus standard practice; algorithm versus individual attention. We aren’t suggesting a return to a ‘better’ time. We don’t object to being bureaucrats, embedded within and accountable to the systems we are in. But we do want to consider how and with what the gap left by the old-fashioned GP has been filled. We use stories based on our experience to describe the effect of different facets of bureaucracy on our ability to maintain a nuanced, individualised approach to each patient and encounter; and to question the prominence and effect of protocol. We are interested in the way professional relationships are influenced by protocol: between and within organisations; and most importantly with patients/clients/service users.. We are accustomed nowadays to automated telephone lines, chatbots, website FAQs- the frustration of being unable to connect with another human being who will listen to our particular question and give us something other than a generic answer. The same issues that are facing society at large have changed the way in which we work as GPs and the care we give.

From the author of the international bestseller "The Western Way of War" comes a fresh, exciting look at three armies whose intense spirit of mission, coupled with the genius of their leaders, led them to triumph. Maps.

This collection of essays on general practice, written by a variety of eminent contributors working in primary care, considers the influence and leadership of GPs and general practice in the wider community in order to improve the understanding of general practice.

Over 200 observational drawings created every day from the same window reveal life in an ordinary English street in extraordinary times. This visual record and accompanying prose is a unique meditation on place, nature, community, time and mental well-being. Through this qualitative work we gain insight into the individual and collective experience and place-specific impacts of the pandemic, as opposed to the quantitative statistics of mortality and infection rates that characterise daily media soundbites and scientific discourse surrounding lockdown. Five themes are central to the drawings, highlighting the environmental and social factors influencing daily life, and how these can be perceived and recorded via observational drawing: ‘framing space’ foregrounds the importance of widows as an interface between interior and exterior worlds; ‘observing nature and the built environment’ celebrates the street and garden as sites of human-nature relations that support well-being; ‘watching people’ focusses on the activities typify living under lockdown including isolation, socially distanced interactions and working from home; ‘drawing’ reflects on the multiple professional and personal benefits of drawing; and mindful awareness is discussed throughout, affirming the value of appreciating everyday life through drawing practice.

You can know from that guy's burly figure that the collision just now didn't do him any harm at all. The man is in his thirties, and his pimples are dark. The scarlet Lama clothes and the criss-crossing scars on his bald head make him look extra scary. He looked around and found that when no one was with Xuanfei, there was an incredible expression on his face. This is a deserted grassland, and he really can't understand why a seven-or eight-year-old child will appear here.