In praise of half doing a job

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7504.1365

BMJ 2005;330:1365 (11 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7504.1365

Filler

In praise of half doing a job

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

To many of us, "half doing" something is quite unthinkable.We are programmed by our upbringing and medical training tobelieve that if a job's worth doing it must be done properly.In the real world, however, life's not quite like that. In generalpractice we often have to cut corners because we simply don'thave time to do a full examination on every patient.

To diverge slightly, I was once told that many people with messydesks are actually very tidy. This apparent paradox arises fromthe fact that they prefer to live with the mess if they haven'ttime to do a thorough job tidying up. They feel uncomfortablejust putting papers into piles, so they put off the job untilthere is time to file everything in its proper place.

Perhaps it's a bit like that in general practice. I suspectone or two of us don't . . . [Full text of this article]

Jill Graham, general practitioner

London (jjrgraham@aol.com)