Devon nurse honoured with humanitarian medal by King
Devon nurse Paula Tobin has told of her pride at being presented with a Humanitarian Medal by King Charles for her life-saving work in Gaza.Ms Tobin, 57, from Tavistock, was awarded the honour in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.She spent four months in Gaza, over three different deployments, volunteering for frontline medical charity UK-Med, and is due to return again in April.Ms Tobin said: "I found it much easier packing my bag to go out to Gaza than deciding what to wear to Buckingham Palace to meet the King."
Mum 'over the moon'
The field hospitals where she worked in Al Mawasi and Deir El Balah, established with Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) funding, have treated more than 300,000 patients. "It is lovely to have my work recognised and my mum was absolutely over the moon when she heard the news," said Ms Tobin."Being able to take her to the palace hopefully goes a long way to making up for all the worry I've put her through over the years."A veteran of humanitarian crises including the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014, Ukraine and the Turkey earthquake, she said it was "hardest for your family back home"."Gaza's been a tough one because it is so much in the news," she said. "Each time I come back and I am okay, my family get a tiny bit more relaxed, but they do say 'just don't go again'. "I've told them I am returning in April and my response is always 'you know this is me, it's what I do. I'll be fine'."
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the new medal "recognises the incredible dedication and selfless service of individuals on the frontline of the UK's responses to some of the world's most devastating crises"."I am delighted the first tranche of awards will recognise members of the UK government's emergency deployment teams, for their brave work in Libya, Morocco and Gaza," he said.
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Telegraph
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Just how psychopathic are surgeons?
These are the people we trust to hold a sharpened knife above our bare bellies and press down until they see blood. We let them tinker with our hearts, brains and bowels while we lie unconscious beneath their gloved hands. Surgeons live in a world of terrifying margins, where the difference of a millimetre can be the difference between life and death. That level of precision demands an extraordinary calm, or what you could also call a cold detachment. But what happens when that same self-possession curdles into something darker? In recent weeks, two surgeons have made headlines for all the wrong reasons. In France, Joël Le Scouarnec was sentenced for abusing hundreds of children – some while they lay anaesthetised in his care. In the UK, plastic surgeon Peter Brooks was convicted of the attempted murder of fellow consultant Graeme Perks, whom he stabbed after breaking into his home in Nottinghamshire. Today, Brooks was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years at Loughborough Courthouse. It would, of course, be absurd to taint an entire profession with the acts of two individuals. But it does resurface a long-standing, uncomfortable question: might the very traits that make a surgeon brilliant also mask something far more troubling? 'When people hear the word psychopath, they tend to think of serial killers and rapists,' says Dr Kevin Dutton, a psychologist and the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths. 'But the truth is that certain psychopathic traits – focus, emotional dispassion, ruthlessness, self-confidence – can predispose you to success, and in an operating theatre, they really come to the fore.' Dutton has spent much of his career trying to prove that 'bad psychopaths' – people who have these characteristics but who can't regulate them – are the ones who commit crimes. A 'good psychopath', by contrast, is someone who can dial those qualities up and down at whim. He recalls one neurosurgeon who was regularly brought to tears by bits of classical music, but who also said, 'Emotion is entropy. I have hunted it to extinction over the years.' Similarly, a cardiothoracic surgeon told him that once a patient was under, he no longer saw them as a person – just a piece of meat. 'Once you care, you are walking an emotional tightrope,' says Dutton, 'but if you see the human body in front of you as a puzzle to solve, then you are more likely to save their life.' 'There's a ruthless part of me' Gabriel Weston, a London-based surgeon and the author of Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story, describes her profession as one that requires you to 'flick off a switch'. Sent to boarding school at a young age (much of British surgery is the product of elite schools), Weston learnt early how to detach emotionally – a skill she found served her well in the theatre. 'If you asked my family, they'd say I'm very emotional in that I cry in films or at art or literature,' she says. 'But there's a ruthless part of me. I use that in surgery – and in other parts of life where emotion just gets in the way.' Over time, Weston learnt to distinguish between two kinds of surgeons: those who switch their feelings back on once they leave the operating room, and those who never do. 'They don't just have psychopathic traits,' she says. 'They live in that space permanently.' They can also come with a reputation for being not just difficult, but dangerous. Harry Thompson*, a British abdominal surgeon, describes a world of towering egos and simmering aggression. 'If you think about it, all surgeons were in the top five of their class,' he says. 'They are all very competitive, and many play sports: they want to prove they are better than everyone. And if you are at the forefront of major surgery, you think you are invincible. 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The Guardian
2 hours ago
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The Guardian view on fitness: evidence of the benefits of exercise keeps growing, but who is listening?
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