Mark Signy

Cardiologist, ex-cricketer. Views are my own...

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

Retiring today after 35 years as a consultant cardiologist.
Proudest achievement - my involvement in the training of, and friendship with, a new generation of brilliant cardiologists, physicians, GPs and even surgeons…
It’s been (mostly) great fun and rather lovely…

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@WG_RumblePants I usually agree with you, WG, but I partially disagree here: I’m sure you’re right that it’s preposterous not to have an ashes test in the north, but surely we need tests at Lords - similarly the Aussies would rightly never leave out the MCG

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@DrAsifQasim @YvetteCooperMP @DHSCgovuk Agree. Congratulations @YvetteCooperMP - looks like a great appointment.

[Dr Rachel Clarke @doctor_oxford]

Sir William Osler, 1849-1919, renowned as the father of modern medicine, famously instructed medical students to: "Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis." It's a simple dictum, but the foundation of the way Osler revolutionised healthcare by insisting that doctors step away from their desks and focus on their patients.

Everyone longs for functioning, joined-up NHS IT, @jamesmurray_ldn (though not via Palantir) - but to suggest, as you have in this post, that history-taking is a tedious irrelevance is to completely misunderstand the nature of medicine. That first conversation between doctor and patient is a close, shrewd, vital therapeutic encounter. As we listen, we observe, appraise, distil. Invariably, the diagnosis can be made. But history-taking, like the rest of medicine, is the marriage of science with humanity. It treats patients as people, not as objects with disease. Through your time, care and attentiveness in history-taking, you communicate something vital to a patient - that they matter and that you care.

Please never forget that healthcare is not a production line of objects, it's an enterprise built on relationships, with humanity at its core. Medical history-taking is its bedrock.

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@DrAsifQasim @Cambridge_Uni He came and spoke at the Brighton & Sussex MedChi society some years ago. His talk on the surgical disaster of the first day of the Somme was the single best lecture I’ve ever been to…
A brilliant man. RIP.

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@Zeus_Cricket @SimonNewton5 Great place and particularly great place to play cricket

[Tim Walker @ThatTimWalker]

Private Eye acknowledges the genius of our political commentariat.

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@SimonNewton5 @ShippersUnbound Agree. Really disappointing stuff, but typical of the Mail. Shame to see Tim descending to this…

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@cricket_badger But they shouldn’t hold him back for the sake of it: they wasted a year of Bethell by doing that…

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@piersmorgan He was terrific. Well played Sunderland

[Roy Lilley 💙 @RoyLilley]

Over the past 35yrs, the total number of NHS hospital beds has more than halved… 1987 nearly 300,000 beds… by 2019, falling to around 140,000.
Over that period, population (England) has grown from about 47.3m to around 56.6m by 2020 https://t.co/87fX3U2c1T

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@legsidelizzy @legsidelizzy probably right, but it does give the unfortunate impression that there is never any jeopardy or consequence for playing stupidly as opposed to badly…

[mary beard @wmarybeard]

I am getting fed up with the end result of political debate apparently being “who can we sack”. I really don’t think that scalp hunting is the most constructive form of disagreement???

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@WG_RumblePants @richardtaylor43 Don’t agree @richardtaylor43 Completely different sort of bowler. In English conditions he was often more effective than bowlers like Archer/Wood (and was a much more consistent wicket taker.)

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@WG_RumblePants Well said. A wonderful bowler, terrific late order bat and always played with a great attitude.

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@SkyCricket Glenn McGrath obviously ( and of course least favourite as Aussie!)

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@willis_macp But surely he should be playing, and opening with Buttler, in T20s. Might be reasonable to save him for that tho’, and play Duckett in 50 over stuff. Smith can easily be lower down the order in both

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@WG_RumblePants @JamieMagill5 Agree - Pope will start if he’s fit. And I’d play Rehan Ahmed at 8: batting very well at the moment and an attacking bowler with a better test record to date than Bashir or Dawson

[Henry Moeran @henrymoeranBBC]

Rehan Ahmed yesterday scored his fifth century of the season.

Averaging over 50, strike rate of 75 (best in top 20 run-scorers in Division Two).

20-years-old and a serious talent.

(Also - took 13 wickets last week.)

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@willis_macp Have they dispensed with Ahmed and Hartley? or do you think they might take one or other to Australia?

[Mark Signy @Siggers1000]

@DrAsifQasim @cardiacjoshi @sado_dan @TheBMA The BCS evolving would be the easier way forward (my father was involved in the 60s when the RCPath was formed, and I think a lot was from the previous Association of Clinical Pathologists, which all sounds quite a parallel - COI: I was about 10 at the time!)