Abstract
Thank you to all of those affiliated (and those not affiliated!) to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) for delving – to varying depths – into the first issue of the Journal of 2024. Although January, when Scotland’s national poet is celebrated throughout the world, is well and truly over, an enlightening snapshot of Robert Burns’ medical history (his ‘wretched state’) is captured in a history and humanities article by Hansen. In it, we are told about the medical treatment of Robert Burns dating back to 1781 after the discovery of the medical notes of one his medical practitioners. In a sobering commentary by Montgomery, the ‘wretched state’ of planet earth is also described in detail, and a final call is made for us all to unite and effect action relating to climate change.
Along with the usual assortment of manuscripts of varying types, we are pleased to publish three original articles involving three distinct bodily systems – the lungs, liver and heart. While our hospitals continue to bulge to capacity and beyond, Bostock describes the benefits of ‘Hospital at Home’ as one strategy by which to keep individuals out of hospital, self-caring, independent and mobile, while still receiving high quality and bespoke medical care. Prolonged immobility, from whatever cause, is frequently cited as one of the major risk factors in the development of venous thromboembolism, and Stark et al. provide a timely and accessible clinical review on anticoagulation relevant to practitioners irrespective of speciality. Several clinical images remind us all of the importance of simply looking at a patient – and in particular – their skin. For readers familiar with ‘Yogi-isms’ (quotes by the legendary US baseball manager Yogi Berra), he also tells us that ‘you can observe a lot by watching’. In matters relating to medicine, doing so can often help lead to a diagnosis and confirm whether treatment has been successful or not.
The editorial board of the JRCPE has recently been expanded and a truly international presence will be now be firmly embedded in its pages and content. As always, as editor-in-chief, I am delighted to be contacted directly about potential manuscripts, and where appropriate, commission articles. I would also like to remind readers that JRCPE articles are curated by specialty on RCPE’s Education Portal. 1 Visit https://learning.rcpe.ac.uk/tags, select your specialty of interest, and in the side panel you can find JRCPE articles relevant to that specialty. 1