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Size matters

I’m on cloud nine. After twelve months of discussion I have finally won an argument with my wife.

We can now have a bigger screen TV, so when we watch films we will get more of the ‘cinema experience’.

The reason for this change of mind is simple.  When we first purchased our current TV the technology for flat screens was still in its infancy and despite the fact the screen was 39” across, the frame around the screen made the front aspect actually 48” across the diagonal which is how TVs are measured.

Now, as the technology has developed the actual screen size is able to fill more of the frame and some modern flat screen TVs only have a half inch frame or less.  My wife’s argument has always been she didn’t want a bigger TV filling up the lounge, which is reasonable.  But as the frame around the screen has shrunk, we can now have a TV that is physically no bigger than the old one, but with a screen that is considerably larger.

What, you might say, has this all got to do with being a GP?

Well, with the responsibilities and workload involved with being part of a commissioning group, increasing patient demand, increasing list size, QOF, CQC, and more all filling our days and with no end in sight something has to give to free up our time.  So, using the analogy of the TV frame size, in my practice it’s not only shrunk to zero its actually broken all the laws of physics and is more like a Tardis, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, which can’t be healthy for anyone.

Now, while you mull all that over, it’s apparently been unilaterally voted upon and decided that what we actually need is not a larger TV, but rather a new set of curtains for the lounge.

Back to the drawing board…

Dr Hadrian Moss is a GP in Kettering, Northamptonshire. You can tweet him at @DrHMoss.