Doctors against the far right

What this episode is about

The discussion highlights the collective effort of UK doctors to publicly oppose the rising influence of far-right ideologies, as evidenced by an open letter calling for greater visible support against xenophobia, particularly towards asylum seekers. Key points address recent incidents that have heightened concerns, the need for leadership within the medical community, and individual experiences that motivated these healthcare professionals to take a stand.

Key takeaways

• Doctors are standing up against far-right aggression because every patient counts, regardless of their origin.
• Public figures' silence on asylum issues empowers extremists; it's a healthcare crisis that demands vocal opposition.
• One doctor’s comedic twist on tackling racism shows that humor can be a bridge in serious discussions.
• Healthcare workers are becoming targets of hate, yet they’re organized and armed with facts to combat misinformation.
• When the rhetoric dehumanizes workers, it’s not just about immigration; it’s about integrity in healthcare.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Cameron Abassi (Host) · 9 min speaking
• Alistister Stewart (Guest) · 8 min speaking
• Omnia Ahmed (Guest) · 6 min speaking
• Jordan Rivera (Guest) · 5 min speaking
• Matthew Hutchinson (Guest) · 3 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Cameron Abassi, Ahmed El Ahmed, Matthew Hutchinson, Alistister Stewart
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Ahmed El Ahmed, Jordan Rivera
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Michael Rosen
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Matthew Hutchinson, Are You Really the Doctor?

Notable quotes from "Doctors against the far right"

• Welcome to the Medicine and Science podcast from the BMJ. I'm Cameron Abassi, editorin chief. This week, how doctors are opposing the far right. We need public statements from chief execs,.

  about Cameron Abassi · at 0:13

• Just that. We have with us Jordan Rivera, who's an occupational therapist in East London. We have Omnia Ahmed, who's a resident doctor in East London, and Alistister Stewart, who's a consultant psychiatrist in Manchester.

  about Ahmed El Ahmed · at 0:59

• Even in mainstream society. And there's there's a poem by writer Michael Rosen which has a the first line is fascism comes as your friend. And I think that's something we…

  about Michael Rosen · at 12:08

• Matthew Hutchinson is a rheumatologist, a researcher, and a stand-up comedian.

  about Matthew Hutchinson · at 17:17

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Cameron Abassi — Person · Host · 2 mentions · first at 0:13
  Introduces the episode, frames the discussion on medics opposing the far right, and moderates the panel conversation with the open-letter authors.
• Matthew Hutchinson — Person · Main guest (featured interview subject) · 3 mentions · first at 0:34
  Doctor/researcher/comedian interviewed about his book and experiences as a Black doctor in the NHS, including racism, professionalism, and mental health.
• Ahmed El Ahmed — Person · Guest (open-letter signatory / organizer) · 4 mentions · first at 0:20
  Resident doctor explaining how far-right and anti-migrant rhetoric affects NHS staff, settlement policy anxiety, and the need for visible institutional support.
• Alistister Stewart — Person · Guest (open-letter author; main speaker in first segment) · 1 mention · first at 1:10
  Consultant psychiatrist and open-letter author outlining motivations for the letter, describing harassment of healthcare workers, and referencing Michael Rosen's line about fascism.
  In East London. We have Omnia Ahmed, who's a resident doctor in East London, and Alistister Stewart, who's a consultant psychiatrist in Manchester.
• Jordan Rivera — Person · Guest (open-letter signatory / organizer) · 2 mentions · first at 0:59
  Occupational therapist describing on-the-ground organizing in a London hospital (leaflets, myth-busting) to counter far-right rhetoric and misinformation.
  Some of them, some of those medics to talk about how they're planning to do just that. We have with us Jordan Rivera, who's an occupational therapist in East London. We have…
• Michael Rosen — Person · Referenced expert/author · 1 mention · first at 12:10
  Cited for a poem line used to frame how fascism can present itself as friendly/acceptable in mainstream society.

Books & papers

• Are You Really the Doctor? — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 17:26
  The book is discussed as a mix of medical memoir and essays on race in healthcare, written by Matthew Hutchinson.
  He's also just written a book. How does he find the time to do all this? The book's about his life as a black doctor in the NHS. If that's not enough, he also found time to talk with BMJ's Shivali Fulchant about what inspired him.

Companies & orgs

• BMJ — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions
  BMJ is the publisher of the podcast and is mentioned in the context of needing public statements against racism.
  That letter, everybody's business call to all NHS staff to oppose the influence of racism and the far right is now available on bmj.com.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:13 Welcome to the Medicine and Science podcast from the BMJ. I'm Cameron Abassi, editorin chief. This week, how doctors are opposing the far right. We need public statements from chief execs, from royal colleges, um, from editors of the BMJ. We need public visible support in our hospitals.

0:34 And doctor and researcher turned comedian Matthew Hutchinson explains how he does it all.

0:41 One key element is having my parents live very close to help with child care. Firstly, we've just published an open letter from a group of UK doctors who say it's time for medics to oppose the far right. I'm joined on the line by some of them, some of those medics to talk about how they're planning to do just that. We have with us uh Jordan Rivera, who's an occupational therapist in East London. We have Omnia Ahmed, who's a resident doctor in East London, and Alistister Stewart, who's a consultant psychiatrist in Manchester.

1:15 Allison, if I can come to you first. Uh, you're one of the authors of this open letter. Um, why did you write it and what's the message you're trying to get across?

1:26 There have been lots of things happening over the past few months and I expect different things have affected different people in different ways, but for me there were two particular well three particular things. One was um seeing the um horrible scenes outside the hotel in Eping, which had become like a petri dish for farright activists with license from respectable politicians to um target asylum seekers who've been placed there with no choice of their own. Um then hearing uh on this morning ITV program, Ryland Clark, usually known as a, you know, a nice guy, wants everybody to be kind and have a good time,

2:16 laid into asylum seekers, portrayed them as people who are given free iPads and nobody knows who they are. And he contrasted them with the immigrant who looked after his mom when she was in hospital and uh saved her life. And that's an interesting distinction because actually the result of all that relentless targeting of asylum seekers has been that precisely those kind of people who looked after his mom in hospital are now the the target of this widespread outpouring of racism that's been happening the last couple of months. And then the the Tommy Robinson demonstration September the 13th which was a big shock to many people. So that was what motivated us to put the letter together and we've entitled it everybody's business because we really think it is everybody's business. It's every health worker's business and in society at large it's everybody's business because if we're going to turn

3:11 this situation around it's going to need a lot of people. Yeah. So you you've described it as from the angle of it's everybody's business to do something about this to react to this. Um, but I'm assuming there's a particular way this is manifesting in healthcare settings, Alistister.

3:34 Well, yes. So, I suppose one of the things that immediately made a friend of mine suggest that I should put a help to put a letter together was an article in the BMJ about the experiences of health workers who were going into a hotel or in a couple of places

3:51 to to provide health care to asylum seekers who were living there. and those health care workers themselves became the target of harassment and intimidation.

4:00 Can if I could just turn to Omnia and Jordan at this point you'd set up a a separate group to think about and perhaps tackle some of these issues. Tell us about that Jordan. I'd seen about the big rally, the racist rally happening in central London because that rally had obviously gone past the central London big central London hospital and how they had behaved that they'd been racist towards security guard. They've been really aggressive to people. They've been urinating in fountains, frightening staff and staff had felt um frightened to leave work and some people had arranged to to stay on site because they were so frightened. Um and then you know just hearing about the speeches that were made on those days you know replacement theory and specifically talking about specific groups of people like Somalis and Afghans and Pakistan these old these people have got more rights than British people totally rubbish. So anyway we

5:00 were at work that day and um then we were all like this this is just so awful. What can we do? say I started a little group.

5:08 Yeah. Health workers who you know who wanted to um fight against the far right.

5:15 Yeah. And we in my hospital we started to organize. We were doing um leaflets. We wrote a leaflet. So one side why we'd set up this group and the other side um mythbusters. Why is immigration so so good for the NHS? Why it's such a positive thing and why we're so grateful. M

5:34 and I guess the idea was giving people um some um fact that if anybody starts stopping racist rubbish to them that they've got a fact that they can just refute what people are saying to them.

5:47 Okay. Well, I think good good that you you took that initiative. I mean, can I just pick up on that point um that Jordan raised, which is that just with the political discourse, the media discourse, the social media discourse as well when that external noise is just so loud and pervasive. How does it affect people working within the NHS?

6:13 I think obviously I fall into that category. I'm a British Sudanese doctor and a lot of my colleagues are are not don't have citizenship yet but are on different routes to settlement and I would say it troubles us greatly and I think it makes us feel really vulnerable um and

6:34 it's also the um narrative has been so dehumanizing that even in the counter narrative we are still being regarded as just productive ity productivity unit. You know, when the when the I get the farright rhetoric, anti-migrant rhetoric, it takes two forms. It's aggression, vulgar racism, and physical and verbal attacks on the streets, which we're all experiencing. But it's also pervasive and seen in policy and regulation changes that have been coming out from the time of the Tory party's leadership until now with the Labour Party continuing it and the potential catastrophic idea of it ending with a reform party um leading this country.

7:21 And so when the home secretary talks about um the immigration white paper taking people from a 5year route to settlement to a 10-year route to settlement um bearing in mind that 40% of those on a 10-year route settlement plan are NHS workers that has a profound effect on us and we don't want to be talked about migrants do not want to be talked about just in terms of their economic output or tax contribution. I think these changes in policy are not just catastrophic for the NHS which would fall apart and for the and for the running of multiple different government organizations. It's catastrophic because it's a moral failure that strips people of their dignity. Migrants are not just workers. Migrants are moms, dads, children's, neighbors, people who built their lives and communities and roots here and that includes includes our colleagues NHS workers. Um so you know this the rhetoric is really really

8:17 worrying and has really direct effects and gathering together and mobilizing is all about reempowering us in in seeing the collective action collective support that there is in the hospital. Seeing it loud and seeing it vocally coming from the management up as well as from our peers and our colleagues is really important to help counteract that. building a community response that builds collective power and ambition for change rather than feeling like it's over. Maybe we need to plan for leaving.

8:45 So, can be clear with you? Are you saying that there's not enough of that? You know, you want to hear more of that articulation of support for people from different backgrounds from for immigrants and others from management from colleagues.

9:00 Definitely. Yes. I mean, listen, we're in Black History Month. We're all very used to these DEI schemes in our hospitals. I think we're at the point where we need more than lip service. We're over just being served jerk chicken and having quotes about Martin Luther King sent out in your weekly newsletter to the hospital internet. Um, we need public statements from chief execs, from royal colleges, from editors of the BMJ. We need public visible support in our hospitals. People seeing the leaflets, seeing people seeing badges, supporting anti-racism to foster that environment where not just NHS workers, but our patients and our communities at large can start to feel safe and feel that solidarity.

9:41 Yeah. No, that's true. And you're right to expect that. I mean, I'm I'm an immigrant myself and I trained here. Um, so, um, I mean, back in the 70s and 80s there was racism. I remember the National Front marching through our town when I was a child saying, you know, all immigrants should be sent home. And I I genuinely believed that I would have to leave the country. I mean, I was what, 10, 11. Um, in the intervening years, it seemed to me that gradually we were pushing back those barriers. you know, we were breaking down those barriers. Sorry. And there was more integration. There was we're developing a more tolerant society, but it's things have gone horribly backwards over the last five or six years. And that's that's what's particularly alarming and the trajectory only seems to be getting worse. Now, whether I mean, it's complicated. I mean, extremist politics seems to be what catches people's attention and

10:46 support. It's not helped by social media, but I'm guessing you must be disappointed because you you've all taken action around this and mentioned the political side of it in in the leadership that politicians are showing. And if we just take the Labor government for example, I mean now they are tackling some of these issues a bit more headon um and calling some of the rhetoric that we hear they are calling it racism and they are trying to be stronger in reacting to it. But then that makes you wonder well what took you so long and then you know clearly what you were doing was previously was just a a political strategy and that and it just makes everything ring hollow. So and it feels a bit like it's kind of too little too late. I wonder how you feel about just the general climate. I mean, it doesn't seem to be conducive to kind of kind of putting putting the world to right, you know, making a fairer society where we're more

11:52 tolerant of each other. Alistister. Well, yeah. And I think the one thing we have to confront is that at the moment being racist has become far too acceptable um in

12:08 even in mainstream society. And there's there's a um poem by writer Michael Rosen which has a the first line is fascism comes as your friend. And I think that's something we really have to confront because fascism is about a solution to protecting women and girls against some unknown predator. It's about giving you something to feel proud of when you haven't got anything to feel proud of. It's about making things fair when you feel life isn't fair. And

12:40 that is all all that is about focusing on some out group. And it started with asylum seekers and now it's spreading not just in you know far right groups but in mainstream conservative with the small C politics. saying that yeah that immigration is the problem and the solution to all those many many problems that our society has is to do something about immigration and that's that's a big job we've got on our hands is tackling that

13:14 yeah and a lot of that is misinformation which Jordan you've been you've tried to tackle by providing people with the facts and when you provide them with the facts what happens

13:25 well the fact that they felt comfortable enough with me that they could actually raise it. That gives me opportune we come back and have a discussion and actually go through the facts with them and countered some of that misinformation. So yeah, what what we want to do is a second meeting where we you know I think on our first meeting that we had in hostel was lot of supporters people all feeling the same but actually we need to have another meeting where we're talking to to those other people

13:56 people who've got who do have concern because you know not everybody is like a hardcore racist. Some people have have just seen stuff on social media and got a bit riled up about it. And I think those are the people that we do need to go to and have good discussions there. And I think you can you can win them back.

14:16 Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense because there be hopefully a small proportion of people. You're never going to change their minds. But it's the people who've been fed misinformation who kind of been misled into thinking that this is a problem in the way that it's being described politically when in fact as you say you know there are benefits and our health service wouldn't be what it is without um the overseas doctors the immigrant doctors who who work in it. Omnia, as a doctor of African background in the NHS, how does it feel at the moment?

14:53 It feels um I feel ve very uh devalued as a human being. As I mentioned, the discussion always seems to be the discussion around migrants has been obsessive. Um, and it's always been around this demand for our productivity as opposed to an acknowledgement of our humanity and our dignity.

15:20 And that discussion started off with the rhetoric being pedled by politicians and legacy media um, with regards to asylum seekers and refugees. But as as with everything, the goalpost always shifts when the underlying sentiment is ultimately racist. And so it shifted from refugees and asylum seekers where it was already deplorable and unacceptable to immigrants on visas, people who are here legally, to just your every black and brown person on the street, even your black and brown doctor, your black and brown nurse. And I feel like the response has always been for in with regards to say someone like me is look but she's contributing. She's looking after you. But it's more than that. We are humans just by virtue of that alone. We should be given the respect that we deserve. Um and to feel like that is really disheartening. But I h I must say that coming together with the open letter, coming together with

16:20 Jordan thinking about leafleting and um just coming together as a collective to try and mobilize and organize against this um rather than sitting back and feeling vulnerable has been really empowering and I think that is the idea behind this movement. The NHS is the most diverse arm of the state. Um we are from all cultures. We don't have to just stand back and watch ourselves and our colleagues have their lives ripped apart by changes in settlement schemes by changing indefinite leave to stay by the increasing racism. We have the power to enact change because as as doctors as health workers GPS and hospitals are at the heart of communities and the most public facing part of government and state we can really put in change.

17:03 That letter, everybody's business call to all NHS staff to oppose the influence of racism and the far right is now available on bmj.com. Matthew Hutchinson is a rheumatologist, a researcher, and a stand-up comedian. He's also just written a book. How does he find the time to do all this? The book's about his life as a black doctor in the NHS. If that's not enough, he also found time to talk with BMJ's Shivali Fulchant about what inspired him to write about his experiences when they come out, what do you try and do to the parents? Like, what's your favorite expression?

17:48 They're called FL Kids. Okay. Funny looking kids. Is that right? Lovely. Exactly. Between you two, lots of get struck off this evening. There's a staff in crisis again.

18:05 Been enjoying the Olympics. You guys have been enjoying that. Yeah, I particularly enjoyed the opening ceremony on the Sen uh which looked customdesigned to anger Nigel Farage. Load of highly motivated foreigners on boats just cruising down the channel coming over here stealing our gold.

18:29 So Matt, you've written a book. Can you tell us a bit about it? Yeah, so uh the book is Are You Really the Doctor? Um, and it's essentially a mix of medical memoir, so my experiences, uh, combined with, I guess I'd call them short essays exploring themes that are lighted upon within each chapter. The focus of the book is really race in healthcare, both as it affects members of staff, but I'd say equally importantly, and probably almost more importantly, how it affects the patients that we're seeing. So, how race as an extra factor affects people's experience of going to the doctor affects which diseases they may experience and also how their outcomes may differ. Um, so yeah, that's really the main thrust of it.

19:15 Obviously, you've got multiple hats that you wear. How do you balance it all? Um, so I mean, well, one key element is having my parents live very close to help with child care. That's uh that's rule one. And I mean, I was, you know, I'm doing all of these things part time. So, you know, currently, for example, having finished my PhD, I've gone back to clinical work 60% of the time and I'm still doing research a couple of days of the week. Um, and then I just sort of fit things like writing around that. Um, I mean, I think a lot of my working sort of approach for more creative stuff comes from the fact I live in Southeast London, work in northwest London, so I've got quite a long commute in both directions to do work on.

19:55 And how have you found the areas that you're more interested in, for example, comedy? How did that come into your

20:01 I think some of this is just it becomes quite organic. Um and as you say things grow gradually. Um I started doing comedy during a period of time which I think a lot of doctors are fairly familiar with. Um when I was doing it's basically when you become an SHO and you're senior enough that people expect you to know what you're doing and take on quite a lot of responsibility but you're still junior enough that you still get quite a lot of the rubbish jobs as well. So there's this weird kind of responsibility, respect and prestige mismatch. Um and so I think I was just feeling quite disaffected at that time and it was around the time of the junior doctor strikes as well as in the old the old ones. Yeah, exactly. Like showing my age. Um so around that time I was just you know thinking of what other things could I do and aside from you know not dropping out and becoming a management consultant. I was like what else am I

20:46 interested in? Um and I was I think it's one of the things as well I was listening to so many comedy podcasts at that time and um

20:53 to keep yourself sane. Yeah. to keep myself sane and um and just um the then sort of used sort of extend to then starting to write jokes yourself and think about oh if I were doing standup what would I write about and that naturally then goes well if I'm spending this much time I should probably have a go at it at least.

21:09 What was your first standup like? I mean it was pretty bad. I mean, I think the thing is like no one until you do comedy, I don't think anyone realizes quite how low stakes and small scale like the London open mic comedy circuit is. So, it's kind of a room above a pub with a room of just other comedians. You're not playing in front of actual often real or many sort of genuine audience members. It's just people waiting to tell their jokes. So, it was kind of almost like a crash down to earth in the sense you sort of build up in your head. think it's going to be this really scary uh you know room full of 150 200 people and it's literally just 10 slightly miserable people in a pub. So it's you know so then it gradually built up from there.

21:50 One thing I was reflecting on is that in medicine you're often quite cautious of the things you say um because you're quite worried about how you might be perceived by patients and so on. And then as a comedian also being having a presence online

22:05 how do you navigate that? Um, it's I mean I think it depends what your personality is like. I mean I think I don't know if fortunate is the correct word, but I don't think I'm naturally the kind of person that wants to tell the darkest most unpleasant jokes. You know, I I don't think I'm naturally drawn to doing that. And not that I've got a particular problem with it, it's just not my personality comedically. But I would certainly say I have to think probably many more times over before posting anything or before doing anything that's going to be consumed at least online. And so I think what I can say in a room, not that I again say anything wildly controversial, but anything that I say in a room in a comedy club is one thing, but anything that I would want to post online, I would have to think many, many more times over about what are the potential ramifications for this. So I do think

22:49 it's an obstacle that I have that probably other comedians don't have. But on the flip side, I think medicine offers you quite a lot of other things that other comedians don't have in terms of things to talk about and other opportunities adjacent to comedy. So it's a benefit and a disadvantage.

23:05 And do you think going into the comedy helped you to stay in medicine or do you think you were motivated enough to

23:11 I know I think it definitely on the sense of like you know having things outside of any career I think is well recognized as something that can help you a keep a bit of perspective keep you sane all of that kind of thing. But at the same time as well I think going and experiencing or encountering people who either just in the world of comedy directly but also the kind of people who have come from other careers themselves into comedy then gives you a bit of insight into what other people's working life is like and shows you some of the advantages to being in medicine. I guess one of the things that is really strong a strong theme in your book which I wanted to kind of come back to is being a good doctor and how that um relates in terms of um how you interact with patients. Um so one of the lines that you mentioned is dosing hostility in syrup um and making that call of when to call out patients and their prejudices

24:06 versus when to deescalate the situation. Maybe can you tell us a bit more about that situation and then also what you kind of mean and how that applies to your practice? Yeah, I mean I think in terms of the dowsing hostility with syrup, I think it's a more overall approach even just rather than specifically a patient who might have a specific antagonism because I think you know we all work in the NHS and because of the stretched resources and the fact that your clinic is always going to be running late, you're almost always on the apologetic foot as soon as you're seeing the vast majority of patients, even if it's just a case of just being like, "Oh, so sorry to keep you waiting." That kind of thing. So you're already almost acting like you're in, as we've talked about, the hospitality industry where you're essentially trying to pate a customer who's maybe not had quite the experience that they should

24:53 have. And then obviously there can be levels to that. Um I think the situations where you're likely to get out and hostility from patients are not super frequent. So, I mean, I guess if we're saying how racist, for example, does a patient need to get until you're actually going to switch from that to saying, "No, this is enough." I think it's when they if anyone says anything overtly unpleasant or antagonistic, I think at that point, you know, the uh the the attempt to plate them can maybe stop.

25:24 Have you ever had to do that? I'm just trying to think. Not No, I wouldn't say overtly because certainly not for anything sort of particularly racist. I think more just people who are dissatisfied for example and so you can just be like you know stop the consultation say look we can either get to the point where I you know am able to arrive at a diagnosis or discuss your problem and treat you or you know we can stop this now and you can wait to see someone else that kind of thing. So occasionally you do eventually have to draw a line under it. A lot of the times it is also people are so stressed because they just have a really serious problem and we're at the worst of ourselves when we're feeling a bit

26:05 un completely. Yeah. So I think you do. Yeah. That's why that's why I do think the line has to be quite far down the line in terms of just giving people the benefit of the doubt. Um and I think everyone has their own line but I think it becomes often quite clear when something shifts from a slightly frosty interaction to out and out unacceptable.

26:25 Yeah. And also, you know, you touch on in your book about migrant workers in the NHS and sometimes the kind of rougher time that they might have. And um I think there's some very nice subtle elements that you also bring in um such as kind of the accents that we have or the way you dress um and how that all impacts on how a doctor might be perceived. I think certainly I mean an accent is always for me the easiest one to address because even if I were to look at how my accent and what's almost become my standard way of speaking has changed I would say from going to medical school to coming out the other side and then working cuz if anything I went to medical school having gone to as I say growing up in Catford and then going to a school out um in the kind of as I say sort of Beckenham Westwickham area um a lot of I always had a mocknney accent when I arrived at medical school and then left speaking like this. Yeah,

27:18 exactly. You know, can can you can you give us a sample? I'm not going to give you a sample now, but it was very much kind of of the era when you know Mike Skinner the streets was kind of he's got slightly bra sort of twang to his twin as well. But you know you know a lot of the kids at my school loved uh Danny Dyier as a sort of should we say accent role model. Uh so that became kind of the norm whereas now you know this is the way I speak in most contexts just because of ease and simplicity because it's how you end up having to speak so frequently at work

27:46 and also the osmosis maybe of yeah definitely being surrounded by that as well.

27:51 Um the other thing you know I thought also that interesting that you mentioned was about mental health and um

27:58 you know that is can be a particular challenge to speak about both for men and also men from black communities. um you had an episode that you talked about and you mentioned that to your Was that really hard telling someone that you had anxiety supervisor? It's certainly there's quite a high bar or quite a high threshold and I think it's always that same kind of thing where because obviously mental health is ultimately invisible in many senses it's still so much easier to be like I have nor a virus I can't come to work today whereas you know where you draw the line or where the threshold is for choosing to externalize the fact that you're feeling anxious is so much more a personal choice and subjective because you're not either vomiting or you've not got pneumonia or any of those particular things. So I think that line is always going to be there. And then there's always those kind of cultural overlays.

28:44 I would say if anything the biggest barrier um in that context is still the medics's inability to admit that they're ill. Like I think I think culturally even just even putting aside those other demographics or just the idea like I just the idea of calling in sick I think is particularly on certain shifts just like you know if someone calls in sick on a day that they're supposed to be on call for example the eye rolling and the sort of like I can't believe you've called in sick.

29:11 Yeah. And your colleagues will judge you for it as well. I mean even I will say that I've sort of absorbed it and had to catch myself where so if you hear that for example on a night shift one of the F1s has called in sick it's like what do you mean what are you talking and it's like completely unacceptable but you feel like you've internalized this mad idea I say yeah mad is a porative term in the context talking about mental health but um this ridiculous idea that people can't just be ill uh it's yeah it's it's all pervasive I would say and definitely I would say applies in particular to mental health because there's less objective at least externally

29:46 signifies. So how did you find that experience and did you find that helped by being able to share

29:52 that you were going through that? Um I think there's always that kind of threshold of you get the release of not having the anxiety because I think obviously if you're an anxious person to then add the anxiety of working out whether you are or aren't going to talk about it almost just makes you more anxious. It's another anxiety. So it's kind of a kind of load off your mind and I'm say fortunate it's more quite specific in my context is that I just generally found I get quite anxious induced by night shifts. So I just find night work and the interruption to I guess circadian rhythms makes me just feel terrible. So I think a lot of it so by the time often you've dealt with it in that respect you're back in a normal daytime rhythm and feeling a lot better and normal anyway. So kind of there's a natural cycle when I experience that.

30:39 Anyway, doctors are human after all. So, surp unsurprisingly, thank you for sharing that.

30:46 That's it for this week. Uh, we're back in a fortnight. You can find the BMJ's Medicine and Science podcast and all the usual platforms. I'm Cameron Massie. Thank you for listening.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Doctors against the far right"?

Cameron Abassi (Host), Alistister Stewart (Guest), Omnia Ahmed (Guest), Jordan Rivera (Guest), Matthew Hutchinson (Guest).

What is "Doctors against the far right" about?

The discussion highlights the collective effort of UK doctors to publicly oppose the rising influence of far-right ideologies, as evidenced by an open letter calling for greater visible support against xenophobia, particularly towards asylum seekers. Key points address recent incidents that have heightened concerns, the need for leadership within the medical community, and individual experiences…

What is mentioned in this The BMJ episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Cameron Abassi, Matthew Hutchinson, Ahmed El Ahmed, BMJ, Alistister Stewart, Jordan Rivera. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Doctors against the far right"?

The episode runs 31 min; the transcript is about 5,527 words in 63 timestamped sections.

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