Mountains of the mind: "I’ve become part of the landscape and it’s become part of me"

We begin in darkness and head up towards the light. It is that time just before the dawn when it’s neither day nor night. Down near Lake Coniston, I can hear an owl and a curlew calling, both claiming the hour for themselves. “I like to come this early,” says Sion. “There’s no one else around. I can’t handle crowds. I get confused.”

It’s 4.30am and I am with Sion Jair, 67, and his partner, Wendy Kolbe, 63, and we are heading up the Old Man of Coniston, an 803-metre Lake District fell noted for its sharp ascent and great panoramas of southern lakeland. Or at least we hope so: there are some clouds massing in the east.

For Sion, this has become a daily ritual, adopted seven years ago when a visit to the doctor changed his life for ever. “I had been feeling permanently tired, and suffering some memory problems. It meant I couldn’t get out walking, you see, and when I can’t walk, I really shut down.”

After tests, the doctor diagnosed chronic anaemia from vitamin B12 deficiency. Injections usually sort that out, but Sion reacted badly to the shots and, without them, was given three years to live. Determined not to give in, he set about walking in earnest, covering around 10 miles a day. “Eventually, it worked. I reckon it cured me of the chronic fatigue,” he says.

But there was another blow. The anaemia had been masking signs of dementia. Given the particular type of condition he was suffering from, he was warned that he could expect periods of total memory loss, mood swings and eventually the inability to look after himself. Sion had become one of the estimated 25 million people worldwide suffering this progressive neurodegenerative disease, as feared now as the Black Death was in its day.

“It was quite scary,” says Sion, adding, in something of an understatement. “I didn’t like the idea.”

‘When I can’t walk, I really shut down’ … Sion Jair walking up the Old Man of Coniston. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

Sion’s response was typical of him: he walked even more. Not just the Old Man, but other fells, too: Scafell Pike, Helvellyn, Blencathra, Dollywaggon Pike – all the greats. “I’ve done them so often, I know them blindfolded.” And all this he did without any technological intermediaries, smartphone or GPS – just the steady rhythm of his feet. On one occasion he did 12 peaks and 28 miles in 22 hours, raising cash for his three favourite charities: the Alzheimer’s Society, Mountain Rescue and the Great North Air Ambulance. He also walked in Wales – he walked the Snowdon horseshoe more than 200 times – and Scotland, but it was in Coniston that he found his walking mantra. I suppose you could call it his Coniston Old Man-tra.

“I come twice a day sometimes. I know every part of the path, and lots of individual stones. I’ve done it more than 5,000 times, and hope to do it long into my illness. But I don’t call myself a walker – not at all – this is me. Me and the Lakes. I found a place where I fit in – I’ve become part of the landscape and it’s become part of me. It’s a kind of symbiosis.”

That is what fascinates me about Sion. His walking has embedded him in the Lakeland landscape and made him happy, despite the dementia. Like the Herdwick sheep grazing the hillsides, he has become hefted to the fell.

Walking, of course, is as familiar and mundane as breathing. Most of us do it all the time, and have done probably ever since the proto-human Sahelanthropus tchadensis walked across what is now the Djurab desert in Chad six or seven million years ago. The bones found there in 2001 are currently the oldest evidence for bipedalism, although that species was probably still a tree-climber, too. It was not until Homo erectus, a couple of million years ago, that two-legged locomotion finally became the method of travel that defines humans.

The act of walking, however, has come a long way since it was just about peeking over the elephant grass and carrying a big stick. It can take on a greater purpose and meaning than simply propelling yourself along. Think of the times you have walked a good distance and then looked back and marvelled at how far you’ve travelled. There is something magical and energising about gazing back over the ridges of misty fells, or even how many Tube stations you have passed. Great thinkers and writers, from Aristotle to Lakeland’s own William Wordsworth, have sworn by the power of walking. There is no possibility of cheating, no first-class option. When we walk, we are all equal. “Shank’s pony” is a great leveller. Perhaps that’s why we choose to protest by walking. A group protest march on foot carries the message that something is wrong with the outside world and needs to be put right. In that way, I think, Sion’s walking is a kind of solo protest march against an inner problem, his dementia. It’s his way of tackling it and refusing to surrender without a fight.

We are starting to climb more steeply now, and the track is a treacherous scree of loose, flat stones that make dull, hollow noises when kicked. “It’s hard,” he says, “talking and climbing.” But that doesn’t stop him. When we pass an abandoned slate quarry halfway up the mountain, he tells me how he once moved a wooden beam that was threatening to fall on some unsuspecting hikers. Beside that beam is some rusting winding gear. Perhaps it’s that – the metal wreckage of a former life – that triggers something in his head, because next thing he is telling me a childhood story from the 1950s. “I was out shopping with my mum and two RAF jet fighters collided overhead. I remember watching the fuselage of one jet smash into some houses. When we got home, our house had been hit, too. There was a big crack in the gable end.”

As if on cue, the sun breaks over the low bank of cloud and instantly spreads a fiery glow across the fell ridges and summits. Is this how it works, I wonder – walking triggers memories, then somehow they get tangled into the walk itself? Are the fells listening?

‘I do believe the walking is holding the dementia at bay a bit’ … Sion and Wendy on the summit of the Old Man. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

Sion is certainly an entertaining companion, and has an impish sense of humour. He is also a quick walker. He had said, at the bottom of the hill: “No one passes me on the fells.” By now I could understand why. With short, rapid strides, he gets into a rhythm and does not stop. Wendy is left behind, and I have to concentrate hard just to keep pace with him. His energy and power are astonishing.

Behind us the landscape begins to unfurl: the silver streaks of Lakes Windermere and Coniston, the silver eyes of Low Water and Levers Water. “It might get a bit windy here,” says Sion, and sure enough, within a few strides a cold blast comes roaring up the col, biting at us, and suggesting another story.

“Back in the late 60s and early 70s, I was a biker,” he says, chuckling. “I had long hair and rode a BSA Royal Star. One time me and a mate rode down to London from Birmingham on it – both of us with hair all down our backs. That was in the days when you didn’t have to wear a helmet, and of course we didn’t.” He stops to wipe away a tear that the wind has tugged from his eye. “When we stopped at a service station, we both got off the bike and immediately fell over. Our hair had got knotted together by the wind. It was crazy. I remember bystanders killing themselves laughing. We had to cut it with a knife.”

I ask if these kind of stories come back to him at other times – when just sitting at home in an armchair, for example.

“No. My mind shuts down and I get depressed. I need to walk, then it comes.”

Sion is walking his stories out, using the rhythm and swing of his legs to oxygenate his memory, triggering recollections. With dementia, he tells me, there is very little help in that difficult period between diagnosis and the dreaded moment when the sufferer can no longer cope. This is his self-administered treatment.

I ask about his past. Had he always lived in Cumbria? “I was in Birmingham for many years. I lived beside the M6 at Spaghetti Junction for 14 years.” Recent studies have suggested a link between pollution and dementia. Was there anything good about that? He grins. “I miss the sound of the birds coughing.”

He had gone through some bad times: redundancy, divorce and homelessness, but later he managed to get a housing association flat next to the notorious road intersection. The smell of diesel was ever-present. He was already struggling with chronic fatigue, and a doctor recommended he get away to somewhere with cleaner air – perhaps in the mountains. It was then that he recalled a teenage visit to an Outward Bound course in the Lakes. He telephoned a housing association in Cumbria and asked to do a swap. When they offered a place he took it immediately. He laughs. “They said: ‘Don’t you want to see it?’ I said: ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’”

‘No one passes me on the fells’ … Sion Jair on the descent back to Coniston. Photograph: Kevin Rushby

When he arrived in Ulverston, he looked out the front window and in the distance saw the Old Man, the fell that looms over Coniston village. The next day, he went up it. “I’ve always walked a lot. When I was going through divorce and redundancy, I walked to deal with my problems.”

As we reach the final summit ridge, he instinctively turns away from the wind and leads us to a place of shelter, then dons a thicker jacket. “We’ll not stop long at the top – it’s going to be too cold.” And that reminds him. “A lot of people come out now with GPS, but in cold weather the batteries don’t last as long. They forget that.” He doesn’t believe GPS helps. “It takes away skills like timing, pacing and contour-reading – skills that bring a feel for the landscape.” And beyond that, “I reckon they prevent people from building memories of places and routes, gathering all that knowledge and experience into a useful mental map.” This is something that is particularly significant for a dementia sufferer, and the evidence bears him out.

Soon after GPS first appeared in civil navigation, around the turn of the millennium, academics began noticing its adverse effect on mental maps, even damaging spatial awareness. In 2008 a Japanese researcher, Toru Ishikawa, showed that subjects given GPS rather than paper maps made more errors and travelled further. Other studies confirmed this and similar findings. No wonder there has been a spate of books on traditional navigational methods, such as John Huth’s The Lost Art of Finding Our Way, and Tristan Gooley’s The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs. One area of the brain long thought to be associated with mental map-building is the hippocampus. Unsurprisingly perhaps, London cabbies who have done the Knowledge have been found to have larger hippocampus volumes. It is known that people with reduced hippocampus volumes are at a greater risk of developing conditions such as dementia. The science suggests that Sion is absolutely right in treating himself with large doses of mental map-building.

At the summit, we brace ourselves against the icy blast and gaze around. Wendy comes up and joins us. Sion names the fells and lakes. Northwards to Fairfield, Wetherlam and Scafell Pike; east to Low Water, the Coniston Fells and the Pennines. He has walked all these ridges, and knows every path and tarn. Not wanting that knowledge to be wasted, he and Wendy have started a not-for-profit venture to teach navigational skills using traditional map-and-compass methods. “We try to give people the confidence to be out here alone,” says Wendy.

It had seemed like a joke when I had asked Sion if there was anything he missed about Spaghetti Junction, but now I ask if there have been any benefits to his diagnosis of dementia. He laughs. “I can never remember who lent me money.” But then he thinks, his eyes twinkling. “You know, I think there is. I’ve learned to live every day as it comes. I do believe the walking is holding the dementia at bay a bit. And I’m up here in all weather, even Christmas Day. I love it. I’ve tuned in to the Lakes, and they’ve tuned in to me.”

Mountains of the mind: "I’ve become part of the landscape and it’s become part of me"

Bashar al-Assad trained as a doctor. How did he become a mass murderer? | Ranjana Srivastava

Preparing dinner, I bite my tongue as images of the latest atrocity in Syria flashes on the screen.

“Isn’t he a doctor too?” my daughter asks.

“Yes,” I cringe at the “too” and rededicate myself to the carrots.

But she knows that conversations about medicine are usually far more animated in our household and immediately sniffs out my reticence.

“I don’t get it. Aren’t doctors supposed to help people?”

Since it’s too late to switch channels, I say something benign. But the footage continues, leaving her to conclude, “I guess not all doctors save lives.”

The heart-wrenchingly succinct statement goes to the heart of my own dismay at the appalling crisis in Syria. More than 400,000 dead, most recently in a nerve gas attack. Six million citizens internally displaced. Five million refugees fled to neighbouring countries. An entire country in spasms. And to add to the unspeakable tragedy, at the hands of a president who used to be a doctor. Not just a theoretical doctor, not one of those who enrolled in medical school but never touched a patient. No, Bashar al-Assad was a proper doctor who by all accounts was personable and polite.

A doctor who studied first at the prestigious Damascus University, then committed to post-graduate training and finally went to London to gain further experience in ophthalmology, a niche medical specialty with many aspirants and limited places. A doctor whose boss recalled him as humble and whom nurses thought exemplary in reassuring anxious patients about to undergo anaesthetic.

To his medical class he was unassuming, seemingly unaffected by his status. Perhaps he had secured admission in the way of other entitled offspring, through power and privilege, but he seemed to be at ease with the responsibilities of being a doctor.

Some classmates kept their distance, wary of the dictator-father’s long reach. Some suspected he didn’t have it in him to be a leader, but then, the world needs good followers and it would have been quite normal for Assad to have settled in a leafy corner of London and practised his craft. Not necessarily groundbreaking stuff, but solid, dependable, everyday medicine that relieved the suffering of many. No one thought he would turn out a mass murderer.

Upon becoming president, he returned to London with his glamorous and accomplished wife, herself a cardiologist’s daughter, who presumably possessed insight into a doctor’s obligations. At his old eye hospital, he looked longingly at a slit-lamp and fondly recalled his medical training.

When he was recalled home, Syria was in the grips of a rebellion, Sunni fighting Shia against a backdrop of roiling tensions in the Middle East. Perhaps Assad, the urbane, London-educated ophthalmologist who spoke of Syria’s “own democratic experience”, would be the people’s advocate, the agent of change. But alas, the Damascus spring didn’t last and Assad the kindly doctor transformed into Assad the feared killer.

Revulsion at the horrific abuses perpetrated by the Nazi doctors – Josef Mengele most infamous among them – led to the development of the Nuremberg Code, which govern the ethics of human experimentation. Radovan Karadžić was a psychiatrist and a poet before being convicted of genocide in the former Yugoslavia. British doctor Harold Shipman injected lethal drugs into more than 200 patients, and American cardiologist Conrad Murray was convicted of homicide after injecting Michael Jackson with the anaesthetic agent, propofol.

History has witnessed other doctors turned rogue but Assad’s attack on his own people is staggering by any standard. He has gone from bombing civilians to destroying entire hospitals, and whatever and whoever lies in their wake. Nearly 800 medical personnel have been killed and many others detained and tortured. Four hundred medical facilities lie in ruins, their hapless occupants either dead or badly injured.

Doctors around the world regard Assad’s deeds with dismay and horror

Entire cities have been left without medical aid, turning treatable injuries into fatal wounds. The United Nations has pleaded that “even war has rules” but experts say that no previous war has witnessed such deliberate, systematic targeting of medical facilities and health professionals.

It defies belief, but in a way it makes sense, that a doctor who once felt the pulse of people, knows that the way to still that pulse is by aiming his strongest weapons at the hospitals that keep people alive and give them hope. It would take a doctor to predict the psychological devastation and desperate surrender of a people robbed of gauze for a bleeding wound, antibiotics for a festering sore, surgery for a lodged bullet.

There are interesting views on how someone who once pledged to save lives could so wantonly destroy them. Perhaps he is striving to prove himself to his dead father who had openly favoured his older son who died in a car accident while Assad was becoming an ophthalmologist. The younger Assad was teased for being interested in human blood rather than the blood of politics – this is the revenge of the bullied.

Or more chillingly, all that medical training was just a show and behind the suave specialist lay a murderer who always had the measure of his power. Medical training necessarily inures doctors to pain and suffering: imagine how inefficient a doctor would be if he faltered at a patient’s every tear and cried over every wound. Part of becoming a good doctor is to learn to stand back enough to help, but most doctors experience a continual tightrope in maintaining a professional boundary while being empathetic. Perhaps Assad just dumped the empathy while fortifying the boundary.

Doctors around the world regard Assad’s deeds with dismay and horror. They know how many of their colleagues leave medicine for far, far smaller reasons than killing a patient. Most doctors can’t bear having a stain on their conscience for missing a diagnosis or misprescribing a drug, never mind that the patient wasn’t even hurt. Doctors take their own lives at the mere thought that they did something wrong. It beggars belief that someone who was once one of them could so systematically and remorselessly kill his own classmates and their patients.

History will diagnose Assad one day but in the meantime, when I see my Syrian patients I can’t help wondering whether to just treat their illness or acknowledge their deeper wounds. Their fragility is obvious as is their concern and shame.

Assad’s crimes against humanity seem distant until they are personalised in the form of a son, a mother, a neighbour. The easiest answer is to feel helpless and stay silent but it just doesn’t feel right. Another is to express solidarity with our fellow human beings even as they live unrecognisable lives in distant lands. This, too, can feel inadequate in the face of punitive government policies. A third is to support the courageous professionals and the organisations that are determined to stay put in Syria against the odds. Most of us won’t go to Syria because we are not skilled or capable of working in dangerous and impoverished settings. But we can be effective through donating to credible charities, such as the Red Cross, The White Helmets and Médecins Sans Frontières, who can channel our aid where it is needed.

Our gestures can seem insignificant in the face of so great a tragedy but I hope it says to the Syrian people that while their own doctor president has given up on them, the rest of the world has not.

Bashar al-Assad trained as a doctor. How did he become a mass murderer? | Ranjana Srivastava

In Elder Care, Kratom Can Help Geriatric Patients Become More Lucid and Active

Elder care presents so many problems for the children who, in their prime working years, must arrange some way to care for their aging parents. Homecare is ideal, but most families nowadays have both spouses working, so this is impractical for most. 

Assisted living facilities present another option, but this has limitations and is more impersonal, more detached from friends and loved ones for those being cared for.

A Key Factor in Elder Care Is the Level of the Elder’s Disability

Many of the problems inherent in caring for geriatric patients may be caused by the multiple prescriptions and OTC medications they are taking. Doctors may deny this or say there is no way to avoid it, but they may have a vested interest that prevents them from seeing other possibilities. Besides, there are many natural drug-free ways to deal with most age-related disability (and many commonly prescribed drugs, such as statins, bring little benefit and large side-effect liability).

What if there was a way to reinvigorate those who now require elder care and even Alzheimer’s care, so that they are no longer impaired by so many medications, are more lucid, more comfortable, and more like their normal selves?

What if, instead of dozing most of the day in a chair, these elderly parents could once again feel like walking, joining their caregivers on trips to the store, visits to the park, and outings with the grandchildren?

A growing number of middle-aged parents in the “sandwich generation” — having learned about kratom for their own pains, anxiety, and fatigue — are finding that kratom also works wonders in the elder care of their parents.

There are so many unnecessarily sad stories at the end of otherwise happy, productive lives. The poor guidance we receive from our medical doctors and other public health “authorities” on how to eat, what foods to avoid, and on the importance — the necessity — of nutritional supplementation are to blame, according to Joel Wallach, ND.

Nevertheless, there is a inexpensive, gentle palliative aid that restores vitality and some of the sparkle that these geriatric patients had earlier in life, thanks to the daily administration of the herb kratom.

The usual solution of placing parents in a nursing home or assisted living is often a recipe for imminent decline due to the heavy use of a variety of painkillers, anxiolytics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other meds. The strategy of nursing home staff seems to be, “Keep them drugged up so they won’t be so demanding of our attention.”

Dozing in their wheelchairs, tied in so they won’t fall to the floor and break bones, is a sad way to treat these noble souls, warehoused in even the best nursing homes.

New Hope for Improved Elder Care with Kratom

What if the patients in elder care could be returned to a more active life, able to participate in trips to the store and conversations with loved ones and friends — all facilitated by the energy and mood-boosting qualities of kratom?

We know that a sedentary life is dooming many younger workers to obesity and early onset of a variety of diseases. Imagine what being left in a nursing home does to older adults, removed from family, given all sorts of prescription drugs, and possibly subject to abuse. Sitting all day and night, occasionally trying to converse with other drugged-up patients, moving into apparent senility accelerated by the drugs and poor quality food they’re fed.

That’s no way to treat our parents and grandparents! Some are finding a better way to make elder care more manageable, with kratom, an herb used for centuries in the Orient to gently help relieve pain, boost energy, normalize blood sugars, as well as improve mood and alertness. Research at Columbia University indicates that kratom and it’s chief alkaloids may be a much better choice than opioids, anxiolytics, and antidepressants — all in one herbal tea.

Just as this unique botanical helps restore vitality and elevate mood for younger folks, kratom is reported to create “night-and-day” turnarounds for those who have added the plant, made into a tea, into their parents’ and grandparents’ diets. Below are their stories:

Emanuel: “My Mother, who suffered from inoperable cancer of  bone and breast, took kratom for a while in place of the heavy narcotics they were giving her which neither she nor her body could tolerate. She did much better on the kratom, but when her digestive system eventually gave out, she couldn’t take it any longer… Kratom can work as a replacement for pain management, even in cancer patients.

Surprising that with all the pharma growth and medical industry success in this country, we’re still treating cancer by killing the patient…. It’s a profitable business, cancer… Don’t think it’ll go out of style anytime soon. I’d like to see a natural first approach to treatment in general… Nature is, after all, our first go-to doctor, and traditional treatment in the purest sense, not the other way around.”

Author’s Comment:  I have heard several doctors say that chemo and radiation “therapies” are what kills cancer patients, but the doctors can alway blame the disease. Chemotherapy is chosen because of its high profitability, not its success rate compared to natural therapies.

Emanuel:  “I agree. They had initially wanted to remove her whole digestive system, but she refused, thankfully. She lived ten years after the discovery of her cancer… Don’t think she would have had that long were she to listen to them… Chemo always put her in bed, progressively worse…”

Nancy:  “I wish I had a video of my 84 yr old Mom trying to toss and wash!! I ended up making her some tea ( which I should have done in the first place). But she so rarely takes a pain medication, that it’s just easier for her.”

James:  “I had an older lady, she is 89 years old now, that came in for massage every other week. She had been living with scoliosis for her entire life. Her back looked like one of those “curves ahead” signs on roads, almost a perfect “S”.

I offered her Kratom about 3 years ago. Massage was helping with her pain, but not stopping it completely. I wanted her to feel no pain.

She still takes her kratom. I send it to her every month (she is on social security, so she can’t afford to buy it). She takes 14 ounces every month, and says her pain is gone on most days.

She was only taking pain medication (lortab) when she started coming to me for Massage. She is off of those now.

For her age, and her back being totally screwed up, she is in surprisingly good health. She says that she has more energy now, and even started a new rose garden last year.

I honestly believe this lady (Miss Mary) will outlive me.”

Wendi: “My 83 year old father in law LOVES Premium Bali kratom for All his aches and pains- and he has shared it with many of his friends in that age group!”

Ang:  “We just started my half-sister’s mother and her husband on kratom and what a life changer it has been for them. They are in their eighties.

 

She suffers from Addison’s Disease and they both were just having lack of energy and were just going downhill really, really fast just from old age, but Wow what a difference kratom made!

It’s getting them out and getting them active again when they were both home and bedridden, pretty much.

I just couldn’t believe the difference in my sister’s mother and her husband after the first 2 weeks — it was like night and day! I’m going to guarantee that it will probably prolong their life because they’re not dormant and stationary. Now they actually can get up and around the house and go on errands with my sisters whenever they have to go to the store for him and stuff.”

Kay: My elderly neighbor, that I was taking kratom to,  was eventually taken to the hospital because of some swelling in his arm. When he came back home on other meds along with OxyContins, he started going down from there. It was awful to watch my friend slowly “go away”. I went over one morning and saw that he had had a stroke, so he went back in the hospital and died. I know I can’t blame one thing, but he was doing good with the kratom and that was a big dose of “Oxies” for such a tiny frail man. Because of the Oxys, all he did was sleep and he could barely walk. I miss my buddy!”

Author’s Comment: It’s just my layman’s opinion, having read these accounts of happier outcomes in elder care with kratom — and my own experience of seeing my mother’s decline, due to a broken hip, a hospital stay, and the “best” nursing home care — kratom would have been a far better option if it had been available then for her elder care, compared to the mind-robbing medications and Electro-Convulsive Therapy they treated her with (the latter without my prior knowledge or permission, as her legal guardian). More humane methods of elder care are needed.

Paul Kemp writes often about the constructive uses of the herb kratom he has seen and heard about in the community of millions of medicinal consumers.

See Also: Encouraging Results Reported Supplementing Dementia Patients with Kratom

Recent Research on Kratom Shows Minimal Side-Effects Compared to Opioid Medications

In Elder Care, Kratom Can Help Geriatric Patients Become More Lucid and Active

After an expensive and lengthy medical degree, I won"t become a doctor

Breaking bad news is an essential skill taught to us at medical school, one that I had to employ when explaining to my friends and family that after seven tough years at university, I’m leaving the profession.

If I take a step back and look at where it all began, I see a 17-year-old with a supportive, medically-oriented family who were absolutely certain of their child becoming a doctor. My entire childhood was a subliminal path towards making this choice, from having Scrubs or House on TV daily, to admiring the respect with which everyone addressed my father at his clinics.

Despite having a clear inclination towards technology, and general geekiness, I chose to continue my medical degree for lack, or perhaps fear, of pursuing other options. It was, however, not long into my training before I started dabbling with non-medical opportunities while masking them as “CV-beefers” for my medical career. This included spending two weeks traveling across Sweden and the Netherlands with a group of like-minded and skilled individuals, helping to improve their healthcare systems using technology.

The pressure that comes from understanding the importance of the job you’re preparing for, life or death in the case of medicine, results in students wanting to study and perfect each topic to a point where other interests are boiled off. Eventually, I started reprioritising my interests over this urge for academic perfection.

Along the way, my drive to become a doctor has diminished by increasing disillusionment of working for the NHS. This is not to say the NHS isn’t a fantastic organisation and one we should be immensely proud of. My main gripe as someone with a strong entrepreneurial gene is that it isn’t an institution that embraces innovation. For me, the deal-breaker is that the NHS doesn’t treat its employees as individuals and isn’t open to new ideas. I feel I could have a bigger impact on healthcare working outside the NHS rather than for it – this is why I aim to pursue a career as a doctorpreneur, not a doctor.

Coming to this decision has led me back towards my passion for exploring technology and despite the demands placed on me by my full-time university course, I have launched a tech company called Synap, which is already having a big impact on the way thousands of students study for exams.

But while entrepreneurship is the right path for me and, I believe, many other medical students with a passion for innovation – it’s not right for everyone.

My family have come to terms with my decision to leave the profession because they know I am driven enough to succeed. Have they questioned the time and money spent on a degree I won’t be pursuing as a career? Of course, but they also believe that my time spent at Leeds University is an investment for the future. The medical skills and training I’ve learned and developed are transferable to so many areas of my life and I know they will make me a better businessman.

There’s a lot I love about medicine and the NHS, but being a doctorpreneur will provide me with an opportunity to help more people from the outside.

If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com.

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After an expensive and lengthy medical degree, I won"t become a doctor

Suicide rate hits 10-year high and dementia poised to become leading cause of death

The number of Australians taking their own lives has hit a 10-year high, while dementia is tipped to overtake heart disease as the nation’s leading cause of death within five years.

The number of suicide deaths climbed above 3000 in 2015 for the first time, rising more than 5% in 12 months, official figures show.

Suicide was the leading cause of death for 15-44 year olds, with males three times more likely than females to take their own lives.

Suicide rates were highest in the Northern Territory, while Queensland recorded the greatest increase in deaths.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that while suicide accounted for less than 2% of overall deaths in Australia in 2015, it claimed the lives of a third of those aged 15-24 and more than a quarter of 25-34 year olds.

Mental health groups were dismayed by the rising rates and called for a new national approach to suicide prevention.

The chairman of beyondblue, Jeff Kennett, said the Senate should set up a special commission to combat suicide, while Lifeline wants a national summit.

“These figures have to stop us in our tracks,” Kennett said. “The 2015 total is two-and-a-half times the national road toll and six times the number of Australian lives lost in the entire Vietnam War.”

The chief executive of Sane Australia, Jack Heath, said while much had been done to reduce the stigma around mild and moderate mental health issues, more help was needed among the 700,000 Australians with more complex conditions.

“There needs to be access to better-quality services and that particularly becomes an issue for people in rural and regional areas where there are a quarter of the psychiatrists and half the psychologists,” he said.

“And we need to do a better job to help people who are discharged from emergency departments after suicide attempts by making sure there’s better follow-up services.”

While deaths from suicide are rising, heart disease remains the main cause of death for most Australians with more than 19,700 fatalities last year.

However the ABS predicts dementia will topple heart disease from its top spot by 2021, with the number of deaths having doubled in the past decade to 12,625 largely as a result of our ageing population.

Dementia is now the second-biggest killer of Australians, while heart disease and stroke-related deaths have been steadily declining.

Alzheimer’s Australia’s CEO, Maree McCabe, said while one in 13 people in their 30s, 40s and 50s have the brain disorder there was not enough awareness about dementia among young and middle-aged people, who often mistakenly think dementia is a normal part of ageing.

“If we can delay the onset of dementia by five years we would reduce the number of people who get dementia by 30%,” she said.

McCabe called for a government-funded national dementia strategy, similar to those in the US and Britain.

She also advises people reduce their risk of developing dementia by exercising, eating healthily, socialising and keeping their brains active.

Leading causes of death in Australian in 2015

* Ischaemic heart diseases (19,777, down from 21,721 in 2010)

* Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (12,625, up from 9003)

* Cerebrovascular diseases (10,869, down from 11,200)

* Trachea, bronchus and lung cancer (8466, up from 8102)

* Chronic lower respiratory diseases (7991, up from 6129)

* Diabetes (4662, up from 3948)

Source: ABS (excludes suicide)

• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78

Suicide rate hits 10-year high and dementia poised to become leading cause of death

No scrubs: how women had to fight to become doctors | Farrah Jarral

My idea of power dressing for success in the high-stress, male-dominated environment of medical school finals a decade ago was a smart blazer, hair in a bun and the strict avoidance of cleavage. Margaret Ann Bulkley, born in Ireland at the end of the 18th century, took things to another level. In her quest to break into medicine, Bulkley adopted an entirely male persona – it worked, and she emerged from Edinburgh University as the fully qualified Dr James Barry in 1812. This “beardless lad” served as a British army surgeon across the Empire for more than 40 years, her secret largely undetected.

Barry developed a reputation not only for her surgical prowess but also for her abrasive personality. After one unpleasant encounter, Florence Nightingale described her as a “blackguard”, writing that she “behaved like a brute”. Barry had a dog called Psyche and was prone to offering herself up for duels, including one over the establishment of a leper colony. Her close friendship with Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape Colony, South Africa, where she was assistant surgeon to the garrison, led to rumours of a homosexual relationship – at that time, a capital offence in the armed forces. Somerset offered a hefty reward for the capture of the person who had spread gossip about the alleged “unnatural practices” and the rumours were quashed.

It was only on her death in 1865 of “diarrhoea” that the charwoman laying out her body discovered that James Barry was, in fact, biologically female. Stretch marks on her lower abdomen show that she may have even had a child. The Manchester Guardian described her life as “a supreme deception”, but acknowledged that she had been a brilliant surgeon.

A portrait of Dr James Barry. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Barry’s is not the only tale of cross-dressing in medical history – it echoes the tale of Agnodike, a fourth-century Athenian woman who is said to have cut off her hair and posed as a boy in order to study medicine under Herophilos, a follower of Hippocrates. Being a female doctor was a crime punishable by death, so Agnodike maintained her disguise, becoming a popular gynaecologist. Suspicious of her success, the male doctors accused her of seducing the women of Athens, an allegation she was only able to refute by lifting her skirts. Only her patients’ protests saved her from execution. While this story is likely to be apocryphal – dramatic skirt-lifting is a surprisingly common trope in ancient myths, and the only account of Agnodike’s life is from a shoddy Latin compilation of stories written hundreds of years later – the theme is familiar.

Women have always been intimately involved in medical matters – and not only through their familiarity with the act of expelling oversized babies from undersized pelvises. In the Middle Ages and beyond, women worked as midwives, nurses, apothecaries, bone-setters and surgeons. Yet, as the study of medicine became formalised, women were increasingly excluded. Henry VIII made a point of this in his 1540 charter forming the Company of Barber Surgeons, forerunner of the Royal College of Surgeons, in which it was decreed “No carpenter, smith, weaver or women shall practice surgery.”

By the mid-19th century, more women were demanding entry to medical school. The British Medical Journal at the time declared: “It is high time that this unnatural and preposterous attempt … to establish a race of feminine doctors should be exploded.” Men expressed concerns that exposure to gore might pose a risk to delicate female health, apparently oblivious that women deal with blood on a monthly basis.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, born in 1836, was the first English woman to qualify as a doctor. Despite her passion for studying medicine, not a single British medical school would accept her. Undaunted, she first enrolled as a nursing student, and then exploited a regulatory loophole to practice medicine by sitting exams for the Society of Apothecaries in 1865. She was the last woman to sneak in via this backdoor; the following year, it was closed. Garrett Anderson’s campaigning contributed to the 1876 “Enabling Act” that allowed the licensing of both male and female doctors.

This legal change wasn’t sufficient to thaw the antagonistic attitudes of most British medical schools towards women. But while teaching hospitals kept their doors shut, women set up their own hospitals. The coming decades would see more and more medical schools accepting women, and in 1892 the British Medical Association finally accepted female doctors.

The first world war allowed women to take up posts in hospitals that would ordinarily have been occupied by men. But despite their competence, female physicians still faced major career obstacles in the interwar period, including discrimination on the basis of their marital status. In 1948, the educational reforms that came with the inauguration of the NHS required that a “reasonable proportion” of medical students were female.

Today, female medical students outnumber their male colleagues. Currently, 45.4% of all registered medical practitioners in the UK are women. However, the proportion of senior hospital specialists who are women drops to 33.4%. The top echelons of medicine and surgery, especially senior academic posts, continue to be dominated by men. And there remains a significant gender pay gap.

Next month, Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones will be leading a group of runners on the Royal Parks half marathon in support of the Medical Women’s Federation, which celebrates its centenary next year. For the last hundred years, it has been committed to strengthening the position of women in medicine. We’ve achieved gender parity at intake for doctors in training – but when will we see it reflected in positions of power, and in our pay packets?

No scrubs: how women had to fight to become doctors | Farrah Jarral

New Zealand"s serious sperm shortage: "It has become a continuous drought"

When New Zealander Kathryn Heape realised the fairy tale of marriage and kids was taking its sweet time she took out an insurance policy and applied for donated sperm.

“Since I was 10 years old, I just expected to have a baby when I grew up,” she says.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mother, but the idea of going to a clinic for that never featured.”

With the encouragement of her family and friends, Heape registered with a clinic. What she didn’t realise was that the current waiting list was up to two years.

Kathryn Heape, 40, waited one year before finding a sperm donor. Photograph: Kathryn Heape

“I had no idea there was a shortage, that came as a real surprise. But it’s something out of my control, so I just tried to get on with life while I waited. I kept dating, still hoping to have a baby the traditional way.”

New Zealand is in the grip of a sperm drought, with fertility counsellors saying long waiting times are putting significant strain on already stressed prospective mothers.

“Increasingly we are hearing of New Zealand women travelling overseas for reproductive tourism,” said Dr Mary Birdsall, a fertility specialist with Fertility Associates.

“It’s a very challenging situation. It’s challenging to recruit donors, and it is tough on the women who are psychologically and biologically ready to start a family, but can’t.”

In 2004 the New Zealand government introduced legislation banning anonymous sperm donations and preventing donors from receiving any payment for their services.

Donors in New Zealand have minimal costs covered (such as travel to the clinic) but are not compensated for their time, which after rigorous medical testing and counselling, can be significant.

Under the new law, the sperm donor must also agree to being identified to any offspring when the child turns 18.

A decline in sperm donations following the introduction of the legislation coincided with a sharp rise in same-sex and single women applying for donated sperm.

Dr John Peek, general manager of Fertility Associates, New Zealand’s largest fertility clinic, said there is usually enough sperm in the country to treat about 80 families, but the number of people applying for the sperm is around four times that.

“New Zealand has had a shortage of sperm donors for a long time,” said Peek.

“I think rather than peaking it has become a continuous drought. Like climate change, it has become the new normal.”

Like climate change, [the sperm drought] has become the new normal.

Dr John Peek, ​G​general ​M​manager of Fertility Associates

Fiona McDonald, a counsellor for fertility clinic Repromed in Auckland, says the lengthy waiting list for sperm is added pressure on New Zealand women, at what should be an exciting and positive time of their lives.

“It is really hard for women whose biological clock is ticking and every month that goes past feels like an age,” she said.

“They might already be in the 40s age bracket and time is crucial. Even six months could make the difference between having a child or not.”

In 2015 Fertility Associates treated 300 women with donated sperm. Of those 35% were heterosexual couples with male infertility issues, 25% were lesbian couples and 40% were single women.

McDonald said single women now make up the largest group seeking donated sperm at Repromed – and the first process in their journey is often grief counselling.

“Some women feel a sense of shame at having to take this route to becoming a mother,” said McDonald.

In 2004 the New Zealand government introduced legislation banning anonymous sperm donations. Photograph: Sarah Jones (debut Art)/Getty Images

“One of the first steps is grieving, that life has not turned out how you hoped. You have not found a partner and you are having to embark on this journey towards becoming a parent on your own.”

Dr Guy Gudex, medical director of Repromed, said his clinic needed to “seriously investigate” importing foreign sperm, as the drought showed no sign of abating.

While Heape was on the waiting list Repromed advised her to approach her male friends about donating – to no avail. She also investigated New Zealand websites set up to acquire sperm, but found them “a bit dodgy”.

“They’re not very professional. They can be a bit creepy even. There are men on there saying ‘I’ll help, but it has to be the old-fashioned way’. That’s not sperm donation, that’s sex.”

In 2015 the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) advised the New Zealand government that foreign sperm and eggs should be allowed into New Zealand and subject to the same rules that apply to local donors.

Comparable countries like Australia and England allow the importation of foreign sperm, and demand is growing from Kiwi women that New Zealand should follow suit.

The ACART report found many New Zealand women were already travelling overseas to procure sperm, but time, cost and murky trans-border legislation meant it was not a viable option for most.

The report was delivered to the health minister at the beginning of 2015. A spokesperson from the ministry

Peek said his clinic could not explore overseas options until the minister ruled on import and export legislation, but it was “difficult not to say yes” to women who were increasingly desperate.

Heape is supportive of New Zealand allowing the importation of foreign sperm, but says New Zealand men should be better educated about donation first – and better compensated for their time if they do donate.

After a year’s wait, Heape was given the choice between two sperm donors. She was attracted to one because “he was more open to being contacted” before the child’s 18th birthday.

On her first try earlier this year, Heape fell pregnant. She says she is “tired but ecstatic”.

So far, the process has cost her NZ$ 14,000 (£6,700).

“A few people said to me ‘have a one-night stand’ when thy found out about the waiting list,” said Heape.

“But I don’t want that to be my child’s conception story. When they arrive, I want them to know they were created in the best possible way, by two consenting adults.”

New Zealand"s serious sperm shortage: "It has become a continuous drought"

Girls exposed to "electronic babies" more likely to become pregnant, study finds

Young girls exposed to electronic babies – designed to simulate the real experience of having a baby and discourage teenage pregnancy – were more likely to get pregnant, a study of Australian schools has found.

The landmark study, published in the Lancet, found that 17% of girls who used the dolls had become pregnant by the age of 20, compared with 11% of those who did not.

The electronic “Baby Think It Over” dolls were part of a Virtual Infant Parenting (VIP) program run in 57 schools in Western Australia, first implemented in 2003.

Similar programs, based on the US concept, are now delivered in 89 countries, despite there being no robust evidence of their effectiveness.

Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia conducted a randomised control assessment of the VIP program and warn that the electronic babies may be an ineffective use of public funds.

Nearly 3,000 Western Australian schoolgirls aged 13 to 15 took part in the study.

Of the girls who became pregnant in the VIP group, 58% had abortions, compared with 60% of girls from the control group.

The lead investigator, Dr Sally Brinkman, said the study highlighted that even the most well-intentioned programs could have “unexpected consequences”.

“Australia has the sixth highest teen pregnancy rate out of 21 OECD countries and this study will help policymakers better tackle the issue,” she said.

Girls exposed to "electronic babies" more likely to become pregnant, study finds

Why has women’s fitness become a beauty contest? | Anna Kessel

Being a female Olympian must be a confusing experience. You win a gold medal, you wow the world with your athleticism and sporting talent, you make history … and all anyone can talk about is your make-up, your marital status, or your hair. In 2016 we may finally have woken up to the infuriating daily inequalities facing sportswomen, but it is damning that so much superficial nonsense remains in the rhetoric that surrounds their success.

We should be in awe of what these sportswomen do and say, not harping on about what they look like. When Simone Manuel won gold in the pool, and spoke out about Black Lives Matter, she wasn’t doing it so that people could have an opinion about her hair. When Jessica Ennis-Hill ran her guts out in the 800m for a heptathlon silver medal, she wasn’t thinking about showing off her abdominals. When Egypt’s Nada Meawad and Doaa Elghobashy made their Olympic debut in beach volleyball, they weren’t weighing up how their outfits looked compared with their bikini-clad rivals.

‘When Jessica Ennis-Hill ran her guts out in the 800m for a heptathlon silver medal, she wasn’t thinking about showing off her abdominals.’ Photograph: Ian Walton/Getty Images

Neither should we be. If I see one more editorial about a sportswoman’s outfit, or make-up, or how to get abs like an Olympian, I will throw up. Professional sport should be about the struggle to reach the pinnacle of your abilities, to stretch yourself, to win. These women put their bodies on the line, and use their platform to make bold political statements; it can’t be right that all we can think about is how to achieve greater butt lift.

Because with the explosion of fitness for women has come a new preoccupation with our bodies: the quest for muscle – also known as “fitspo”. It’s all delivered under the banner of being good for you, buoyed by the now ubiquitous slogan: strong is the new skinny. But if strong really is the new skinny, then why do the #Fitspo and #SheSquats images show us flat stomachs? Is “strong” just “skinny” rebranded? And why does it all come loaded with this weird front-facing pressure? By its very nature, fitspo wants you to show your muscle off: to tweet it, Instagram it, Facebook it, Snapchat it. Women, once again, are being put on display.

Related: Fitspo: how strong became the new skinny

What is so pernicious about this movement is that feeling bad about our bodies is being dressed up as female emancipation, wrapped up in the idea of self-control. If you want to look good, you just have to work harder. You’ll feel pain now, but you will feel great tomorrow. Look at her! Do you think she just woke up like this? No! She sweated in the gym. (Remember, ladies, “sweat is just fat crying”.)

If you said any of this out loud, to a friend, you’d probably both have an attack of the giggles. But somehow, in the private glow of the laptop, or phone, these images hold sway over us. Why? Because the messages are so familiar. We’ve been hearing them our whole lives in the language of the diet industry. We already know that we should suffer for our bodies to look right; we already know that we should critique, and pick, and compare, and judge, and measure, and ultimately feel dissatisfied. This is our zone.

Depressingly, it’s fast becoming the case for men too. Reggie Yates’s BBC documentary, Dying for a Six Pack, broadcast earlier this year, brought tears to my eyes as I watched young men risk their lives, waste their bank balances, and ultimately damage their own mental health – all in the pursuit of the right shaped abdominal stack. Which, inevitably, never materialised. Because all our bodies are different and we won’t all get six packs, even if we work out in a sauna, on steroids, with our gut wrapped in cling film. The narrative was so eye-gougingly familiar I wanted to shout in despair at the TV.

Skinny was bad enough, but now we need a six pack and a tight booty that looks like it’s been implanted with beachballs

Rather than “strong” paving the way to female liberation, it all just smacks of new pressures to look a certain way, to conform to a new body trend. Skinny was bad enough, but now we need a six pack and a tight booty that looks like it’s been implanted with beachballs. Plenty of sports at least offer the possibility of inclusivity – but this exercise trend feels entirely elitist. It’s expensive, it involves tight-fitting lycra and revealing crop-top outfits: just how many women are we further alienating in an already alienated section of the population?

Some will argue, inevitably, that fitspo is an improvement on what went before: a necessity, even. We have an obesity crisis, society is less active than ever, gyms and hot yoga being cool are good things – right? And not all media outlets are to blame. At the turn of the year the US editor at Women’s Health announced a ban on some of the worst phrases that have traditionally graced its covers – including “diet”, “shrink”, “drop two sizes”, and “bikini body”. Good for them. But until we stop polarising these issues – from obesity to fitspo – profiling the extremes as though it’s only one option or the other, will we ever truly find a healthy space to live in?

So why do we insist on perpetuating this punitive approach? Why are physical goals so deeply attached to attaining a certain type of body image? Why is all this stuff so emotionally loaded with unhappiness? I want women to be physically active because it feels good, because it is something enjoyable they can do with their friends, their partners and their children, or because it provides a quiet space to be on their own.

I want more women to be inspired by the likes of Jessamyn Stanley, an African American woman living in North Carolina who posts beautiful photographs of her body in exquisite yoga poses that mainstream media would lead you to believe were not possible for a woman of her shape and size.

‘Jessamyn Stanley posts beautiful photographs of her body in exquisite yoga poses that mainstream media would lead you to believe were not possible for a woman of her shape and size.’ Photograph: Jessamyn Stanley

I want to shout about the £2.50 family fitness classes at my local Salvation Army, or the clubbing exercise classes at a community centre down the road, I want women spreading the word about exercise that makes them feel great –through the menopause, dementia and period pains.

With the final note of the Olympic closing ceremony having played last night, our biggest takeaway from these two weeks of incredible sport should be about female sporting achievement and how it connects to our own lives. If we want to move forward as a society we’ve got to stop obsessing over women’s bodies.

Sport is supposed to be fun – that’s the point – and it is supposed to be liberating. In 1896 the American civil rights leader Susan B Anthony wrote: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood.”

Sport should move us further away from thoughts about how we are supposed to look, not chain us into a lifetime of butt-taming burpees.

• Anna Kessel is the author of Eat Sweat Play

Why has women’s fitness become a beauty contest? | Anna Kessel

How to become an Olympic athlete

As this year’s Olympics draws to an end, governments around the world are hoping the games will motivate their countries’ young people to become the medal-winning athletes of the future. But though this sounds like a good idea, it is not enough incentive on its own.

In fact, studies show that motivation has almost no effect on how well you can learn to fence or swim. Improvements to your performance also have relatively little to do with innate ability. In the end, it’s all about how many training hours you put in – whether you wanted to or were forced into it by a coach or pushy parent.

In a study involving violinists (which also applies to athletes), scientists looked at the bits of the cortex connected to the musicians’ left and right hands. They found the bit of the brain which controls the left hand was slightly thicker than the part which controls the right hand.

This change in brain structure was not related to willpower or the motivation centres, which are found in the frontal cortex, but simply to hours and hours of repetitive practice. Perhaps those tough Olympic coaches are the ones who truly deserve a medal.

Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London

How to become an Olympic athlete

Video urges health-related college students to become family medical professionals

Alongside the video, which demonstrates the varied position a GP plays in health care practice with some even doing work on cruise ships or in prisons, the RCGP will up coming week launch a series of regional recruitment roadshows.

The East Midlands, North West, North East of England and Yorkshire and Humber are some of the areas with the biggest shortage of GPs across the Uk.

Dr Maureen Baker, the RCGP chairman, who final year wrote to health care college students urging them to take into account a job in general practice, explained there is a “media perception” that GPs have a significantly less fascinating job than those who operate in other places this kind of as emergency medicine.

Dr Baker explained: “This video – and the GPs who seem in it – present that nothing at all could be even more from the reality.

“Getting a GP is thrilling, varied and challenging, as properly as currently being the only function in the NHS that delivers care for the entire person over their lifetime.

“GPs are now doing procedures each and every day in our consultation rooms that a decade ago would immediately have been referred to hospital professionals.

“We hope the video will attain out to the medical students and trainee medical professionals who are thinking about the direction of their future careers and demonstrate them what a brilliant occupation basic practice actually is.”

While Dr Baker mentioned the profession has been hit by many years of funding cuts, she added that GPs will play a enormous component in the future of the NHS and a get in touch with has been created to improve its share of the wellness service price range by almost 3 per cent to 11 per cent by 2017.

Dr Baker explained: “After years of under-investment in general practice and the emphasis on hospital care, there is now a actual push for much more resources into standard practice and to create up the GP workforce.

“We are turning the tide on funding for standard practice, with pledges from politicians across the United kingdom that it is time to reinvigorate standard practice, in order to provide large quality and price-efficient care to our patients in the neighborhood.

“The potential of the NHS lies not in hospitals but in general practice. With more investment and far more medical professionals, we can decrease waiting occasions for GP appointments and provide a lot more care for patients closer to home, where they want it most.”

Dr Daniel Poulter, the wellness minister, stated: “We previously have 1,000 a lot more GPs given that September 2010 and growing trainees so that GP numbers carry on to expand more rapidly than the population. We have also set out clear programs to train five,000 more GPs by 2020.”

Dr Clare Taylor from the RCGP mentioned the causes why much more healthcare students are not picking to specialise in general practice are not understood fully, but stated portion of it is to do with the exposure they get at health-related schools to hospital specialities – as effectively as Television displays.

Speaking to Sky News she stated: “I consider some of the dramas on tv can portray hospital medicine perhaps in a slightly much more glamorised light.”

Dr Taylor explained it is a “amazing occupation”, including: “I consider all of us would really, really like far more time with our individuals, and to be capable to supply even a lot more services. And the only way we’re going to do that is to have far more individuals coming in.”

Video urges health-related college students to become family medical professionals