1. Comfort, Panic and Learning Medicine

Paquita was thrown into the deep end as a final year medical student, while working as a locum foundation year doctor (“house officer” in those days). On one occasion, she witnessed a death on the operating table and was entrusted with breaking the bad news to the family. She still vividly recalls the neurosurgical operation, which involved the clipping of a berry aneurysm:

1. INTRODUCTION

Conventionally, all women presenting with a palpable breast lesion undergo a triple assessment, consisting of clinical examination, imaging and needle biopsy. Mammography is usually used in older women, while ultrasound is the imaging test of choice in younger women as their denser breast tissue limits mammographic sensitivity [1].

In recent decades, the medical profession has come under immense pressure to maintain effective services for its changing patient demographic. Namely, an aging population with increasingly complex chronic diseases requiring multifarious care [1]. There is no indication the problems we are increasingly facing today are to change without urgent innovation within the NHS on many fronts. Simply put, the NHS must implement resourceful ways to streamline its services.

  Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are a large family of double-stranded DNA viruses that infect skin and mucosal cells [1]. Of the more than 100 recognised genotypes, at least 13 are considered to be oncogenic (or ‘high-risk’). The two most common of these, i.e. type 16 and 18, are known to cause approximately 70 per cent of all cervical cancers. Oncogenic HPVs have also been implicated as the aetiological agents in squamous cell carcinoma of the anus, genitals and the head and neck.