My long journey to replace my teeth is (I hope) at an end. Last week, my lovely dentist fitted my two custom-made teeth. After all the months of drilling, screwing, photographing, x-raying, and prodding, the last fitting was little more than gluing. I now have two colour-matched gnashers installed in my bonce. And all my brain can do is scream… ARGH! THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY MOUTH! The first few weeks of having the teeth removed was weird. My tongue kept prodding the gaps as if it were h…
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As previously mentioned, I recently had a some dental issues and learned how to view a CT Scan in 3D using Linux. At a hackathon last week, my friend Sidd brought along a 3D printer. How hard is it to convert a CT scan to a file suitable for printing? Slightly trickier than I expected! Most of the guides I found were outdated, or the software didn't work on Linux, or the instructions assumed a level of expertise that I just didn't possess. So here's my simple guide to getting it working. I…
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Several years ago, I had a CT scan of my jaw. The dentist wasn't sure if she was allowed to give me a copy of the scan, which led me to ask "who owns the copyright to my medical images?" I still don't have an answer to the copyright question - but I do now have a copy of a CT scan! Last week - following some dental trauma - I had another scan of my head. The dentist took great delight in showing me my bones in 3D. So I asked for a copy. This was something he'd never done before! So,…
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You know that ice-breaker game "Two Truths And A Lie"? When I'm forced into some mandatory office fun, I always say... I've sat in the seat of a space shuttle. I still have two of my baby teeth. I used to be a voice-over artist. Well, one of those truths is about to come crashing down. When I was younger, I had two of my adult teeth removed. They were coming out at such a crazy angle that they couldn't be tackled with braces. So they were surgically yanked out. I was a teenager at the…
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I was speaking to the absolute epitome of a pub bore. Flapping his jaws about how the problem with the NHS was too many admin staff doing absolutely nothing. "Quite right!" I said, feverishly agreeing with his red-faced ranting, "Nurses should spend less time helping patients and more time ordering bandages!" He paused, slightly, as the gears in his brain started grinding. "Well, no, not like that. Obviously." I agreed again, "Too true. Doctors shouldn't be installing computers either. They…
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I ordered some pills off the Internet and swallowed them! What could possibly go wrong? Let's get one thing out of the way first. I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. This blog post is not medical advice. (more…) …
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When I was a kid, I had two of my adult teeth surgically removed. As such, I still have two of my baby teeth. And, as I get older, they're starting to wear down. At every dental check-up my dentist prods them, gives them a wiggle, and sometimes takes an x-ray. "Well," they say, "They're fine for now…" The "for now" is getting closer with every visit. At my last visit, the dentist started to talk to me about "options". It looks like the best thing is implants. A hole is drilled into my jaw (…
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I wrote this before the pandemic. I chickened out of publishing it because I was working for NHSX at the time. Some of these things have come to pass. Some are yet to come. I'll never forget the look of horror on my professor's face when I told him I didn't think his university course was good value for money. I was in the first cohort of UK students paying tuition fees. A massive £1,000 per year. A group of us had gathered to complain about the poor quality teaching materials on a specific …
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I recently went to a university hackathon, where students were trying to invent novel ways to help prevent pandemics. This was purely an academic exercise - they were not developing a fully-fledged app, nor were they creating official policies. I spent some time with one group discussing the privacy implications of what they had built. Thesis By monitoring nearby Bluetooth devices, we can tell who has come in to contact with an infectious person. We can warn people that they may have been…
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I've recently been suffering from a nasty bout of RSI. Thanks to the NHS, I know it isn't full Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is good. But I do need to take better care of myself. My usual kit is the MS 4000 ergonomic keyboard and an Evoluent Vertical Mouse. But recently I've been travelling a lot, and cramping over a MacBook's tiny keyboard. And that's taken a toll on me. The pain in my wrists was so bad, I took two weeks off work to heal. Spending a fortnight not engaging with any tech was …
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I popped round to an NHS dentist a few months ago - and they stuck my head on one of these contraptions. The Kodak 8000C takes a panoramic X-ray, giving a superior view of your teeth. Nifty. The dentist showed me where my wisdom teeth were and I was impressed with how high resolution the image was. Afterwards, I asked the dentist if I could have a copy of the scan. She wasn't terribly sure. She thought that she had to charge me for it. Then wondered if there was a data protection problem.…
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The universe had a moment of quantum indecision while I was sat in a doctors' waiting room. It flickered randomly between playing nicely and messing with my head. I tried to collapse the probabilities by uttering a most unusual secular prayer for a man... Don't be pretty.... don't be pretty... don't be... "Mr Eden?" Maybe that's the nurse. She's barely out of her twenties. Yes. Obviously the nurse. They don't make doctors that pretty, surely. "Come this way. I'm Dr Lena." Arse. She…
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