So here we are. Another medical blog. Another anaesthetist with opinions. You’d think after twenty years of being told to sit down and stop complaining, I’d have learned something. You’d be wrong.

I’ve started this blog for the same reason every doctor eventually starts one: the belief, however misguided, that someone out there might actually want to read the ramblings of someone who spends their days ensuring other people stay unconscious while surgeons do whatever it is surgeons do.

Why anaesthesia?

People often ask me why I chose anaesthesia. The honest answer is that I liked the idea of a specialty where, if everything goes well, nobody remembers you were there. There’s something appealingly invisible about it. The surgeon gets the thanks, the nurses do the actual caring, and I sit behind my drape, watching numbers on a screen and pretending to understand what they mean.

The dishonest answer, the one I give at dinner parties, involves words like “physiology” and “pharmacokinetics” and makes me sound much cleverer than I am.

What to expect

I’ll write about:

• The daily absurdities of NHS life
• Thoughts on anaesthesia (occasionally educational)
• The ongoing war between surgeons and anaesthetists
• Technology failures at inconvenient moments
• The eternal quest for a decent cup of tea

I promise nothing but grumpiness, occasional insight, and the certainty that whatever I write will be outdated by the time you read it.

Welcome aboard. Mind the drip stand.