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1 month ago | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |- David Lynch |- Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
iStock.com/DuxX Thankfully, a growing number of women and men are no longer ashamed to say they have had a procedure Dr Lucia Gannon @LuciaGannon Recently, I unexpectedly found myself musing on the variety and effectiveness of cosmetic dermatology, studying the before-and-after faces of women on my social media feed, and wondering what it would feel like to place my face in someone else’s hands for a complete upgrade. Would I emerge as a different person – happier, more at ease with myself?...
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2 months ago | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |- David Lynch |- Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
Temporary breaks in our routines force us to look at things from a different angleAs I write, snow is falling. I am reminded of the closing passage in Joyce’s The Dead. ‘Snow falling obliquely against the lamplight.’ I imagine the local cemetery, not more than a stone’s throw away, with snow lying ‘thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns’.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |- Catherine Reilly |Catherine Reilly |Priscilla Lynch
As I listened to her, I realised how worries about tea towels and shoes masked deeper fearsShe wasn’t worried about her husband. He would be grand. They were silly, really, the things that bothered her. Like having a dirty tea towel in the kitchen and someone calling for a cup of tea and him using that tea towel to dry the cup. What would they think? Or that he would leave his shoes sticking out from under the bed instead of putting them back on the shoe rack in the walk-in wardrobe.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |- Catherine Reilly |Catherine Reilly |Priscilla Lynch
Direct access diagnostics can be a double-edged swordWhat IS a lesion?” she said, leaning towards me, arms folded across her lower chest as if trying to hold herself together. “You know me, I tend to worry.”In other words, she was asking me to say it’s nothing at all. “Well, it doesn’t mean cancer, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said. “The x-ray just said lesion. A lesion could be nothing at all. It doesn’t mean cancer.” I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned forward, mirroring her pose.
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Sep 9, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |Catherine Reilly |Priscilla Lynch
As my daughter begins her career as a GP, I reflected on what has changed in general practice since I started – and what hasn’tOn 10 July 2024, my daughter, a newly qualified GP, took on the mantle of GP assistant with a view to partnership in Killenaule Surgery. The decision to be a GP in her hometown is unusual among her generation.
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Jul 21, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |- David Lynch |Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ should be mandatory reading for all GP registrarsEvery day, while I am busy with patients, messages land unrelentingly in my inbox, sent on by the secretarial staff; copies of emails and telephone requests for patient information from well-meaning health professionals and administration staff. Nurses working in specialist hubs looking for a summary of a medical history, a list of patient’s medications, a copy of an MRI report.
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Jun 23, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |Sinead Harney |Priscilla Lynch
Weekly face-to-face sessions are only one aspect of a GP’s dutiesRead more by Dr Lucia Gannon at www.mindo.ie@LuciaGannonThe most frequent and annoying question that I have been asked throughout my career has to be, “Are you full-time or part-time?” (Nowadays, it is more likely to be, “Are you still doing a bit?”, but that is a topic for another day.) And often this question has been asked by people who should know better.
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May 26, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
A new role for the general practitioner is challenging social media-led misinformationChristine was 19. She attended me with a cough and sore throat. At last, a straightforward consultation, I thought. History, examination, explanation, hand-over, and safety-netting. All wrapped up in under 10 minutes. Not so fast. It was the safety-net that snagged me. On reviewing her file, I noticed that her contraceptive pill prescription had not been issued for some time.
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Mar 3, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
As GPs, just when we think we have seen everything, a ‘black swan’ swims into viewFor many years, people believed that all swans were white because no one had ever seen a black one. To describe something as ‘rare upon the earth as a black swan’ was to denote an impossibility. The subsequent sighting of a single black swan, invalidated this entrenched belief, but also highlighted the limitation of knowledge gained purely from observation and experience.
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Jan 21, 2024 | 
medicalindependent.ie | Lucia Gannon |Catherine Reilly |David Lynch
The quality-of-life of an individual patient with mental health issues is more important than a diagnosisI had just pressed send on the last prescription when the phone rang. The caller introduced himself as Jack O’Donnell, the new key worker for one of my patients, Stuart Baxter. Jack spoke quickly, earnestly spilling out his story like a medical student in a clinical exam. The patient, Stuart, well known to me, suffered from schizophrenia.
