Emily SimonThomas

🎉that took a little bit longer than anticipated but plugs a small gap in the COVID lit, and is my first first-author publication, which is very exciting. Thanks, @NeonatalEthics for all your patience!🦠 @matthewjrowland

@bushontheradio On call shift

Let's do a BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY audit. What are your plans?

@juliaisobela Ha not sure those could be more different

I like being a doctor but my dream job really is Lady of Leisure

@DrEilidhMaria Yeh flipping sleep back after four nights is a nightmare

@Xeon4f145d96s1 This!!!

Why do we confuse institutional memory for clinical competence?

When the blue blue skies aren’t writing your report for you

@DrEilidhMaria We’ve all been there

@ShivaniM_KC “Dear Simon”……..

[…………] Best Wishes Shivani And the reply email came as follows.. Dear Mirsha, ….. 🤯🤯it’s a new name variation, I’ll give them that

@wmarybeard @CharlotteCGill Mixed experience, personally, and highly dependent on degree. The amount packed into a medical degree allows for limited (not zero) independent thought, philosophy should allow for a lot but certainly not without limits.

@CharlotteCGill I think I can honestly claim not to have been guilty of mass producing anythin over 40 + years in university teaching! I dont think I am a single exception.

But universities DON’T encourage people to think differently! They are mass producing graduates with the same opinions, many of whom are extremely intolerant. If you want an interesting conversation, the rule is fast becoming: speak to a non graduate.

A rather poetic moment starting my final training rotation at Broadmoor, which means returning to Berkshire, where I started working as a doctor in 2018, and to West London Trust, where I started my career as a psychiatrist two years later.

@wendyburn It works well actually, to my surprise. I’m not usually the first to jump on new systems.

Anyone use Thalamos? Is it as good as they say?

The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer over the last week deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics. 1. Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues. 2. Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence. 3. This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness. 4. The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives. 5. There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting. 6. None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals. 7. A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.

@jabberwock951 @DrEilidhMaria Hard agree

@DrEilidhMaria Strongly feel lack of doctor's offices is a major contributor to mistakes and inefficacy. We do difficult, highly mental work. It's very hard to do that in the middle of a ward where you are regularly being interrupted.

@SuhanaAh @TheBookshopMan The film’s good but there’s always the option of not watching.

@TheBookshopMan This is one of my favourite books and I'm worried the film version will spoil it.

Hamnet was an interesting adaptation of one of my favourite books of all time. A completely different entity but a worthy one. Jessie Buckley deserves all the awards. Her performance was captivating. Max Richter's soundtrack enriched the film and wove magic throughout. I left the cinema feeling quite overwhelmed. Loved it.

@HeldinEU @benn_elisbenn Sounds like a psych intervention

@benn_elisbenn Should I look for a lithium infused pillow?

Would this pillow charge my phone?

Denmark is ready !

Denmark changes Greenland’s name to Epstein Island so Trump will stop talking about it.

Every parents nightmare The non blanching rash of meningitis (neisseria meningitidis) infection Vaccine preventable As of today dropped from the US vaccine schedule

@dredbeveridge @BPPA_Official @rcpsych Hi Ed, I wanted to ask you about use of / guidelines re semaglutide without the physical comorbidities in the SMI group with obesity. Any movement toward including schizophrenia in the list of comorbidities? Happy to take this conversation elsewhere..

Absolutely loved speaking at the @BPPA_Official silver jubilee conference. It's great to work with brilliant colleagues to close the #mortalitygap and reach #parityofesteem @rcpsych

@wendyburn (Silver lining of working Christmas week is getting friends’ pets!)

@wendyburn Oreo agrees

Tigger is happy #catsinboxes

@LiamMcIlvanney I ran fuelled solely by cadburys and cups of tea today. You can have it all.

And the post-Christmas diet begins in three, two - oh, change of plan…