Benn Gooch

I Was an Enthusiastic Early Adopter of AI Scribes. Here’s Why I Stopped A GP reflects on what eighteen months of ambient scribing taught them about the consultation they thought they already understood.

My reflections on ambient scribes in primary care medicine.

Head line: “AI saves you time.”

Well, I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.

open.substack.com/pub/benngooc...

⏰ Our National Benchmarking Survey deadline has been extended!

📨 Please complete the survey – members will have received the links by email.
🕒 Deadline to complete is 30th April

Your insights will help shape the future of Hospital at Home nationally.

#HospitalAtHome

I’m a doctor and the same issue for health literacy. You need to be able to read and write and understand basic ideas of cause and effect, some concept of risk, and how to discriminate conjecture and evidence based advice. If you can't read very well that's all unrealistic.

This extremely rare starlit frog may be slipping into extinction – are wildlife photographers to blame? | Focusing on Wildlife A series of photography trips has left one of the world’s most visually spectacular frogs in peril. The rare galaxy frog (Melanobatrachus indicus), named

All of us on this site know better, right? focusingonwildlife.com/news?mailpoe...

A polished marble wall with a close-up of a spiral shell fossil about 8cm across.

I was in a coffee shop today and the there were hundreds of fossils embedded in the marble walls and floors. Here’s a nice example.

#CoffeeShopPalaeontology

Welcome Barney. Enjoy your life as a cat. I get the impression it’s a lot of fun.

Restored Peatlands Could Become Carbon Sinks Within Decades - Eos That’s much faster than what most scientists thought.

Restored Peatlands Could Become Carbon Sinks Within Decades eos.org/articles/res...

I guess evolution has accounted for rain but it’s still sad when they get squished

HAS flattened them. #CoffeeDeficientTyping

The crocuses in my garden are so delicate. The rain and flattened them. Daffs nearly flowering though.

- Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja)
- Photo courtesy of Dick Vautrinot on Instagram.

Sapo Concho, an anthropomorphic Puerto Rican Crested Toad, sitting on the edge of an expanded metal table, wearing tiny grey coveralls! He is eating a quesito, a Puerto Rican pastry made with puff pastry and sweetened cream cheese! Still taken from BAD BUNNY - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Short Film) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLSzEYVDads

A real-life Puerto Rican Crested Toad, Peltophryne lemur! A rough-skinned yellow toad with small black markings on the tops of each of their warty looking spots! They have a prominent crest that runs from the tip of their upturned nose across the tops of their eyes!

In 2025 the Puerto Rican music artist Bad Bunny released an album named DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS! Videos for this album featured a character named Sapo Concho, named after the real life Sapo Concho, the endangered Puerto Rican Crested Toad!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Deep-sea explorers film massive animal drifting through darkness in South Atlantic Ocean | Discover Wildlife The rare giant phantom jelly was spotted during a science expedition off the coast of Argentina.

A popular press recap of all the cool stuff that @schmidtocean.bsky.social recently found off the coast of Argentina

Deep-sea explorers film massive animal drifting through darkness in South Atlantic Ocean | Discover Wildlife share.google/99B8UnGPRL7y...

Google to pay $68 million over allegations its voice assistant eavesdropped on users Class-action lawsuit alleged that Google's voice assistant illegally recorded and shared private conversations with advertisers.

Do you remember when people were saying "I think my phone is listening to me, i'm getting ads for stuff I spoke about" and people said "They arent listening to you, they're just this good at predicting your interests"?

Well, it happens they were doing exactly that.
www.cbsnews.com/news/google-...

The dogs that protect little penguins When foxes nearly wiped out a colony of little penguins, a sheepdog saved the day.

Introduced species like foxes like to stalk the tiniest penguin, so an experimental program to protect the nesting colonies includes Maremmano sheepdog guardians keeping watch for threats.

If that doesn't warm your heart, I think it's time to see a cardiologist.

In my ongoing attempts to give you a break from *gestures widely* THE HORRORS:

Let's talk about the utterly bizarre science of cats' purring.

Here's a weird starting point:
There are NO cats (Felidae) that can BOTH roar AND purr.

Cats that roar = genus Panthera
Cats that purr = genus Felis

I can see ultrasound being very useful in my nursing home population - these questions are very tricky to answer without imagining.

Thank you!

Dr Shahid Nasim

‘When we began this work in 2014, we had a simple aim: reduce unnecessary admissions while giving patients rapid access to the investigations & treatments they needed.’

Dr Shahid Nasim reflects on a decade of change in ambulatory & same day emergency care at @mse.nhs.uk: https://ow.ly/Q9MV50XXZqr

Going to learn some point-of-care ultrasound.

What are the best use cases in primary care?

In what scenarios does it make the biggest impact?

#POCUS #PrimaryCareUltrasound

‘I rarely get outside’: scientists ditch fieldwork in the age of AI In the race to embrace new technologies, some ecologists fear their field is losing touch with nature.

Technology advances mean some scientists rarely leave the lab and have stopped doing field work. A feature in Nature reports how ecologists fear this loss could lead to error, bias and oversimplification of results. #Academicsky 🧪

I'll be giving the Annual Guest Lecture for the Oxford Centre for Personalised Medicine. On 28th April 2026 at 5.30 pm.

‘Personalised Medicine, a Primary Care Perspective’.

Open to all.
cpm.ox.ac.uk/event/cpm-an...

I think that’s my olive oil box?

Very limited scope to prescribe tamiflu in the UK which is frustrating.

A crested guan
#CostaRicanWildlife

A side view of a large rodent with long legs and a very short tail. Comically rounded rump and small mouse like ears.

An agouti
#CostaRicaWildlife

More #CostaRicawildlife.
#herpetology

A visitor to the garden.
They were ushered out with great caution.
#Herpetology #CostaRicaWildlife

Here’s another one
#CostaRicaWildlife

#CostaRicaWildlife