Natasha

29 | Medicine (4/5) @ Liv Uni | Interests include EM & Psychiatry | views are my own |

[Keith Siau @drkeithsiau]

You are replaceable at work, but you are NOT replaceable at home. A beautiful and poignant reflection that applies to all clinicians.

[Dr Jatinder Hayre @JatinderHayre_]

As one of those “working class doctors” (son of a cleaner and a metal worker), the medical profession in the UK has become unpalatable for those like me. No longer a vehicle for social mobility, the medical degree is now a costly cosmetic.

Meritocracy is dead, @wesstreeting.

[Justintime @tykestakeonit]

Junior doctors get £38,000 to serve in our NHS.
Streeting gets paid £161,000 plus expenses and donations from private companies, to ruin our NHS. #LabourLies

[EL'S @ELMONATI]

@babybeginner

[liv 💛 @oliviazao]

Seriously what sort of crack do they put in Mini Eggs

[Jay Anderson @TheProjectUnity]

"I have met some very bad people, none as bad as Trump, not one decent cell in his body.. so yes- dangerous"

- Jeffrey Epstein

[nazir afzal @nazirafzal]

They have names, flight logs, visitors, videos, photos, sworn statements
They have evidence

They’ve only released half the files because the rest is so terrible

Only a woman has been prosecuted

These billionaires think you’re stupid

Prosecute the Predators

#EpsteinFiles

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Today, I am thinking of the countless victims of Epstein’s vile abuse.

The files are an appalling reminder of a rotten political system that shields the rich & powerful from accountability.

We need to build a new kind of politics — one that protects the safety & dignity of all.

[Craig. @bambibristol]

So it turns out the perverts are in private jets after all…

Everyone got a bit distracted looking in the dinghies there didn’t they?

[Afshine Emrani MD FACC @afshineemrani]

In medical school, we are taught a golden rule: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." It is a reminder to look for the common explanation before the exotic one. But after decades in cardiology, I’ve learned that if a patient is still suffering after the "horses" have been ruled out, a doctor must have the courage—and the curiosity—to go hunting for the zebra.

Sarah was a thirty-four-year-old marathon runner and a devoted mother who came to me after six months of being told she was "fine." She had been bounced from one specialist to another, each one pointing to her normal EKG and standard blood tests as proof that her crushing fatigue and racing heart were simply the result of "new mom stress." By the time she reached my office, she didn't just look tired; she looked invisible, as if the medical system had stopped seeing the woman and only saw the data.

Instead of re-reading the normal test results that had already failed her, I asked Sarah to walk me through her life. We talked about her training and her family, eventually landing on a backpacking trip she took to the Mendoza province of rural Argentina. She described staying in a charming, rustic cottage made of sun-dried mud bricks. She mentioned waking up one morning with a strangely swollen, purple eyelid that she assumed was a simple spider bite.

As she spoke, a memory surfaced from a biography I had read years ago about Charles Darwin. Most people know Darwin for his theories on evolution, but medical historians have long puzzled over the mysterious, debilitating illness that plagued him for decades after he returned from his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Darwin had written in his journals about being bitten by the "great black bug of the Pampas" while sleeping in mud-walled huts in South America. He spent the rest of his life suffering from heart palpitations and exhaustion that the Victorian doctors of his time could never explain.

I realized then that Sarah wasn't suffering from stress; she was likely hosting the same "silent killer" that may have haunted Darwin: Chagas Disease.

The "Kissing Bug" lives in the cracks of those mud-brick walls. It bites its victims—often near the eyes or mouth—while they sleep, passing a parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi into the blood. The danger of Chagas is that the initial symptoms disappear quickly, but the parasite can hide in the body for years, slowly weaving itself into the muscle and electrical "wiring" of the heart.

To confirm this, I moved beyond the standard tests. I ordered a specialized "Strain Rate" ultrasound, which doesn't just look at whether the heart is pumping, but at how the individual muscle fibers are stretching. We saw that while her heart looked strong to the naked eye, the fibers were "stuttering," a sign of early parasite-induced scarring. A specific blood test for the parasite's antibodies confirmed the diagnosis.

Treatment required a difficult, sixty-day course of anti-parasitic medication to stop the infection, paired with a protective heart regimen to keep her electrical system stable while the inflammation settled. Because we caught it before her heart was physically damaged or enlarged, the recovery was a success.

Months later, Sarah returned to my office, her vibrant energy restored. She brought me a leather-bound copy of The Voyage of the Beagle with a note tucked inside. She wrote that while other doctors had looked at her charts, I had looked at her. This case remains a vital reminder for my memoir: in a world of high-tech scans and AI, the most sophisticated diagnostic tool we possess is still the human story. When we truly listen, we don't just find the disease—we find the patient.

Good morning.

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

Seems like the Epstein files are full of billionaires and not immigrants.

[Lin Mei @linmeitalks]

Not sure why people can’t comprehend how student loan/debt should be treated as a scandal.

Most of us were TOLD at school…. When we were CHILDREN, you’ll get a loan which will have minimal impact on you, don’t worry about it too much, just apply on UCAS and hope for the best.

No one told us about the increase of crippling interest, how it will affect your ability to buy a house and your general take home income, with little hope of paying it off…..

No one thought …. Let’s ensure these financial products are fully understood by these bunch of KIDS who have never even had a credit card or an overdraft in life.

How can people understand misselling for car loans, Accident claims, loans sharks, but not this??

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

Slavery was legal.
Segregation was legal.

Never use legality as a guide to morality.

[Raja Adnan Ahmed @drraja_]

A resident doctor who moved to Australia told me that their hospital offered him rota match with his wife who is also a doctor.

Their duty hours, weekends & holidays can be matched without the stress of asking for swaps or if you have childcare responsibilities, they can have automatic adjustments accordingly.

Just a small thing for improving wellbeing

In UK, resident doctor may have to deal with additional stress of trying to adjust rota with partner & for childcare.

[The BMA @TheBMA]

We don't want to see this in our hospitals, but sadly it’s an all too common scene. We need more doctors and more training places to make sure people like Marcus’s mum are seen to quickly and not left in corridors for hours. #CorridorCare https://t.co/eruP3dFCDY

[Dr. Ish (they/them) @ishsulin]

i asked it if i was a 67 yo man with IHD, T2DM, and CKD, would 8000 mg atorvastatin be helpful 😭😭😭

i cba (for non-medical ppl this is an atrociously high and unsafe dose)

[Hassan Mafi ‏ @thatdayin1992]

Best quote of 2025:

[Natasha @Natashacocozza_]

Last day at Tesco today, let’s have ya