A Life on the Ocean Wave

Just got back from a course in rural Argyll. The course was on intermediate care: a rather vague, but trendy, term that means different things to different people. Basically the principle is that GPs may become more involved in doing things that were traditionally done by secondary care doctors. The hope is that intermediate care may overcome the problems created by increasing centralisation of medical services for the significant slice of the Scottish population that are unfortunate enough (?) not to live on the doorstep of a large teaching hospital. One of the difficulties is deciding exactly which services GPs will be able, and willing, to provide on a long term basis. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, and I will be exploring the subject further.

We had two free evenings, and on the second of these a GP colleague, whom I've known for years took me, and 3 other GPs, out in his yacht which is, I think, around 30 feet long. I've never really appreciated the attraction of sailing, but it was amazing how "away from it all" I felt even 30-60 minutes from casting off. We headed towards Jura and I took some pictures of the sunset as well as the "rib" of the course director, who joined us at one point. We came back in the dark and I was amazed how Patrick, with knowledge of the area going back over 20 years, safely threaded us between fish cages, boys, rocks and small islands on the way back to the marina. Maybe there really is something to this "life on the ocean wave" business!