Latest news with #route
The Independent
8 hours ago
- Health
- The Independent
Henry Marsh: To admit failure as a doctor is incredibly painful, but honesty is what our patients need the most
One afternoon not so long ago, I was cycling home from the hospital when my bike chain snapped. I had been teaching that day – a regular occurrence with a regular route home that, on this particular day, I then had to change. I don't believe in providence, but what happened next was certainly quite the coincidence: I heard my name called and turned around to see Tina, the mother of a patient I had once treated. A patient that I failed. It was the sort of encounter that most doctors might dread. We had first met 29 years prior, when her son, Max, came into my care. He had a brain tumour that I thought was benign and that if I removed it successfully, it wouldn't come back. But after I successfully operated, Max became ill once more. I refused to believe I was wrong – a combination of wishful thinking and denial – so it wasn't until 12 weeks later when I gave the go-ahead for Max to have another scan. The tumour had grown back; it was very aggressive, and it probably shouldn't have been touched in the first place. I should have asked for help, but I was arrogant and believed in myself too much. Max died six days after his fifth birthday. For decades, I had carried the weight of that mistake in silence, one of the many names etched into the private 'inner cemetery', as I call it, that every surgeon carries within themselves. Yet, as we spoke, something unexpected occurred for both of us: relief. Tina told me that her anger for Max's death had, for years, been directed at me; I was able to see her face-to-face to acknowledge what had happened and say the words I needed to, too: I am sorry. That conversation will always stay with me. Because, although it's our patients who suffer most when doctors prove, which they often do, that they are fallible human beings, we too are left to live with the consequences. To admit failure as a doctor is incredibly painful. But honesty is what the medical profession – and our patients – need the most. For most of my career as a neurosurgeon, I wore the mask expected of me: calm, confident, expert. I hadn't always intended to pursue this path – in fact, I dropped out of the University of Oxford, where I was studying philosophy, politics and economics, due to depression. I then worked as a porter at a hospital for a while before settling on studying medicine at University College London. My decision to become a neurosurgeon came when my own son, William, was diagnosed with a brain tumour as a young boy, which was successfully removed. I quickly learnt that operating on the brain requires a strange balancing act. You must be compassionate enough to care, but detached enough to cut. Too much feeling and you cannot function but too little and you risk becoming severe. The technical part of surgery – the incision, the stitching – is the easy part. It's the decision-making and the enormous responsibility for each one that makes surgery difficult. Probabilities cannot be precise: every choice carries risks. It's why everyone in healthcare talks about 'learning from error', but the reality of that is quite different. There's a tendency to see doctors as heroes or villains. And there are a few heroes, like my friend David Nott, who is quite extraordinary – and there are villains, like that surgeon Ian Paterson, who is now in jail. But most of us are in between these two extremes. We're ordinary people. We make mistakes. But when that happens, we survive and the patient does not. That's why I still remember the faces of the patients who I feel I let down. During my 40 years in surgery I achieved quite a bit – pioneering the awake craniotomy (as it sounds – brain surgery while the patient is still awake, in order to allow us to monitor brain function in real-time as we operate), and introducing many modern neurosurgery practices to Ukraine, where I've volunteered for more than 25 years. But really it's only the failures I remember on a day-to-day basis. Not every bad outcome was a mistake, but they haunt me all the same. Still – while I'm remorseful of being somewhat of an absent parent (and grateful that my relationships with my children and grandchildren are now good) – I don't regret my career at all now. And there are achievements I hold dear beyond the operating theatre. The hospital gardens I fought to build outside the neurosurgical wards at St George's Hospital in Tooting, London, where I worked for many years, are one of them. It took seven years of battling contractors and managers to turn an unused balcony into a green refuge, but the result was transformative for patients in my care. The gardens were a step away from ward beds, meaning patients attempting to recover could shuffle outside, feel the air on their faces, listen to the birds and remember they're a person, not a diagnosis in the midst of all that miserable business of being a patient. Medicine is not Michelangelo at his easel, a solitary genius at work. It should be a collective. A good colleague will see your blind spots better than you can, and you can repay the favour It wasn't surgery but it was certainly healing, and an important part of care, rather than treatment – both of which are important. I know that most especially now, since, at 75, I am glimpsing at medicine from the other side of the curtain. I am a patient with prostate cancer. I knew what it was like to some extent – how utterly helpless and vulnerable we are as patients – because of my son William's illness. I knew how much small gestures like smiling or holding a hand matter in that experience, though an awful lot of doctors never realise. But I was actually very annoyed with myself that, when it was my turn to get potentially fatal cancer, I was scared stiff. I was very, very upset: I was a normal human being. Old age and illness, I often remind myself, come for us all. I expected to be more accepting. What of death? I've seen more of it than most, but there's death – which doesn't bother me at all – and then there's dying, which can be unpleasant, even despite good palliative care. Which is why I've been an advocate of assisted dying for many years now, long before I was diagnosed with cancer. I believe more fervently than ever that patients deserve a choice about how they leave the world. We supposedly still have one of the best palliative care systems in the world but the NHS, for all its brilliance, still too often reduces people to cogs on an assembly line. What's missing is honesty. I broke the mould in terms of medical memoir when I wrote my first book, Do No Harm, because to write about error while you are still in the thick of it was, at the time, almost unheard of. My sister once joked that I have always been a 'confession-seeking' nuisance, but I have felt a duty. Medicine has always been built on silence and hierarchy. But junior doctors cannot be expected to speak openly about their mistakes if their seniors pretend they never make them. If we want a better NHS, the obligation of truth falls first on those at the top. Despite all of this, I remain convinced that medicine is one of the most wonderful professions that one could choose. Neurosurgery demanded everything from me, but in return, it gave me purpose, excitement, a sense of privilege. I cannot imagine living a more meaningful life. What have I learned from it? Know your limitations – a lesson that, as my meeting with Tina taught me, I learned too late. Ask for help. Do not believe your own performance of certainty. Medicine is not Michelangelo at his easel, a solitary genius at work. It should be a collective. A good colleague will see your blind spots better than you can, and you can repay the favour. Pretending to be infallible serves no one. Doctors make mistakes; I made mistakes. To admit them is agonising at times, but necessary. Only by telling the truth – to our patients, to each other and to ourselves – can we hope to deserve the trust that is placed on us. 'Confessions of a Brain Surgeon' is on BBC Two and iPlayer from 9pm, 18 Monday August
CNET
04-08-2025
- CNET
Headed on a Summer Road Trip? AI Makes My Travel Planning Easier
If you're anything like me, you really like spontaneous, unplanned trips but don't like organizing things ahead . If you're planning a summer road trip, you're sure to be one of many on the road, so it's definitely a good idea to think about your route now so you can avoid the worst of the traffic and figure out what you can see along the way. A friend sent me a list of different artificial intelligence tools they used to make trip planning easier. This list included Curiosio, an AI trip planning tool that provides a map, budget and calculated trip length for you within seconds. My ears perked up imagining its potential output speed. Now Playing: I Used Google's Gemini Gem to Plan My Trip 05:19 What is Curiosio AI? My nonnegotiables for an AI trip planner list include a bright and accessible interface, little to no fees and inspiration for my upcoming trip. Curiosio delivered. The tool was created by Vas Mylko and Roman Bilusiak to support solo, budget-conscious and multistop travelers seeking personalized road trip experiences that feature cost breakdowns and flexible itineraries. The free, AI-powered platform offers features like route optimization, detailed itineraries with maps, cost and time breakdowns and detailed guides to destinations. Between its Geek, Travel and Beta modes, Curiosio compiles quite a few tools to help navigate and embellish your getaway, regardless of what kind of adventure you're going on. What I particularly enjoyed about Curiosio was the focus on road trips instead of trying to be an all-in-one travel planner. I also enjoyed its country-specific branding, which includes a hot air balloon adorned with each nation's flag, and its typeface that is reminiscent of an Indiana Jones PC game. With many sleek, yet sterile, tech brands on the market, I thought this gave the website a sweet touch. How to use Curiosio for AI road trip planning Curiosio/Screenshot by CNET Let's first break down the three modes within Curiosio: Travel, Geek and Beta. Travel Mode is for travelers or busybodies who want a simplified, real-time guide. Needless to say, I fall into this category. Here, you can follow your itinerary with directions and context-aware tips. This is perfect if you want hands-off-the-wheel support. There's also Geek Mode, for the detail-driven, perfectionist folks who want control over every detail of their trip. Direct that friend or partner over to this mode so they can put all that energy in Curiosio, and not on you. Here you can customize routing, add filters and use logic to the best of your planning ability. And Beta Mode is for the innovative, experimental type who not only thrives off novelty, but loves diving into a new thing before anyone else. Here you can get access to AI enhancements (and bugs) but also try out new features. At the time of writing, Curiosio was developing its membership to focus on the travel experience. This is how to use Curiosio's travel tool: Head to the website and enter your country. Once selected, navigate to the top and select Travel to enter your starting point and desired destination(s) for your road trip. Specify dates, duration and your budget preferences. Let the AI do its thing and create a personalized road trip plan. Curiosio promises that this will not take longer than 100 seconds. For reference, my plans were generated in about 35 seconds. Review the suggested routes. My output generated four itineraries, ranging in budget and trip length. You can toggle to see the full itinerary breakdown, including a day-by-day itinerary, hotels and budget allocation. Modify by adding or removing the destination to start over, or adjust the travel dates or budget to better fit your needs. Once you're satisfied, finalize your itinerary. This is where you can export the plan to your preferred format or integrate with other mapping tools. Head to the upper right corner of your trip itinerary and select Google Maps from the dropdown menu, or copy the link over to your preferred GPS system. Then use Google Maps or your GPS system to monitor real-time traffic, plus check out any interesting spots between your starting point and your trip's destination. (Though an integrated traffic monitoring system would be a beneficial addition to Curiosio.) Should you use AI to plan your road trip? Curiosio planned a trip to Jackson Hole for me. Curiosio/Screenshot by CNET Curiosio is a simple yet ideal tool for independent travelers who crave flexibility, customization and a touch of adventure -- especially those planning multistop road trips. I see it as a great fit for digital nomads, couples, small groups or anyone taking a chaotic road trip with family who wants a streamlined way to create detailed itineraries without relying on prepackaged tours. If you're someone who enjoys the planning process but wants help optimizing routes while also discovering hidden gems, Curiosio can be a time-saving, dopamine-boosting tool. It's also particularly useful for travelers who are budget-conscious but still want well-rounded travel experiences with context tailored to the places they're going. I found the tool easy to navigate, and it definitely helped me save time. Now, Curiosio might not be the best choice for travelers seeking all-inclusive vacations, group tours or very spontaneous getaways. If you prefer to book flights and resorts, or if your travel is centered around staying in one city the entire time, the platform's road trip-focused approach may feel unnecessary and somewhat rudimentary. It's safe to say that if you're seeking an easy, functional and road trip-focused AI tool to support and speed up your planning process, Curiosio is a simple yet functional option. Planning in seconds is an ideal compromise. Now, if only it could pack for me, too.
