Weekly Meeting - Speaker Phil Bullock (Patholgy)

Phil Bullock (Patholgy)

Our evening kicked off with our new President reciting the Aims and Objects of Rotary and our members were reminded to uphold the ethics and standards of our various occupations. Does the fact that most of us are retired and can’t remember our standards alter this!
Either way it was good to be reminded.

Our 2 enthusiastic guests have both put 30 years of work  into the NHS, starting in the 1970s and coping with all the new technology along with the ever increasing demands. The workload has steadily increased with a greater variety of tests and the vast increase in the pathology in the ageing population, diabetes being a prime mover.

The pathology labs with biochemistry, haematology, bacteriology and cytology now employ 336 staff and spend £22 million or 4% of the Gloucestershire Trusts Annual budget. As well as explaining the tests that are done routinely Phil and Tony pointed out some of the difficulties that new technology presents. The Genome Project and identifying our individual chromosomes is expensive but personalising our treatments and prognoses. Its also shown that 4% of those who have this checked don't have the parents they thought they did!

The influence of the press and media was also raised - sometimes to the good eg cervical smear uptake after the media storm with Jade Goody but often dreadfully misleading when the Daily Mail tries to interpret statistics.

All in all this was an enthusiastically presented overview of an unnoticed, overworked but very efficient part of our Health Service.
Thanks to Phil and Tony.

Bob Paterson