menu_open Columnists
Druin Burch

Druin Burch

The Spectator

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Strikes / I work in the NHS: the government cannot accept doctors’ pay demands

Strikes /					 													 						I work in the NHS: the government cannot accept doctors’ pay demands
previous day 4

The Spectator

Druin Burch

We should raise, not lower, the voting age

We should raise, not lower, the voting age
18.07.2025 2

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Body politics / I’ve come to love the nudist beach

Body politics /					 													 						I’ve come to love the nudist beach
15.07.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Bitter herbs / Jews are good at almost everything. Apart from food

Bitter herbs /					 													 						Jews are good at almost everything. Apart from food
08.07.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Wes Streeting has learnt nothing from the NHS’s past mistakes

04.07.2025 7

The Spectator

Druin Burch

The shame of a middle-aged gym-goer

01.07.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

The flaw in Wes Streeting’s AI NHS app plan

27.06.2025 4

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Respect thine elders

08.06.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

NHS ‘spy scales’ won’t tackle childhood obesity

13.05.2025 4

The Spectator

Druin Burch

The trouble with GPs

07.05.2025 30

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Taboo too far / What’s wrong with national stereotypes?

29.04.2025 8

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Salad days / Why I’ve given up on bacon

16.04.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Oxford is right to remember its German war dead

06.04.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Green shoots / Have we finally developed tastebuds?

02.04.2025 8

The Spectator

Druin Burch

MPs deserve more than a £2,500 pay rise

30.03.2025 8

The Spectator

Druin Burch

No one is immune from a groupchat blunder

26.03.2025 7

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Have we become too reliant on antidepressants?

22.03.2025 9

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Medicine / Have we become too reliant on antidepressants?

22.03.2025 9

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Empathy is exhausting

12.03.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Wordsmith / Sydney Smith’s love for life lives on

22.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Sydney Smith’s love for life lives on

22.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Why the NHS is failing

16.02.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Dinner for one is the best way to spend Valentine’s Day

14.02.2025 8

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Doctor Who fans – and its writers – need to grow up

01.02.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

The true value of going to Oxford

20.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

NHS / When did the A&E winter crisis become the norm?

15.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

The addictive joy of cookbooks

New Year’s resolutions are famously frail, so pick one that’s achievable. Half of the year’s cookbooks are sold in December: this January, let one...

05.01.2025 8

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Life and death on the hospital ward at Christmas

Most people shudder at the thought of working on Christmas Day. Not me. I’ve worked as a hospital doctor since 2000 and, most years, come 25...

25.12.2024 7

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with

Most of those commenting on the guilt or innocence of Lucy Letby – the nurse who is serving 15 whole-life jail terms for murdering seven babies and...

22.12.2024 6

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Labour’s hospital smoking ban is doomed to fail

I have spent a quarter of a century caring for people dying from smoking. Deaths of this sort are not only premature but often horrible. My...

05.11.2024 10

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Hidden harvest / Cooking lessons from the wild

These days, it’s fashionable to get deliveries of vegetable boxes. Some do it through devotion to the dour idol of seasonality; the true worshipper...

21.10.2024 4

The Spectator

Druin Burch

I’ve seen too many deaths to think that assisted dying is a good idea

Over my quarter-of-a-century of being a doctor, I have overseen thousands of deaths. For a busy hospital physician, this is not an unusual number....

16.10.2024 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Badenoch is right: not all cultures are equally valid

Kemi Badenoch kicked up an almighty stink when she argued at the weekend that not all cultures are ‘equally valid’ when it comes to immigration....

02.10.2024 20

The Spectator

Druin Burch

Beep! / What the NHS and Hezbollah have in common

The NHS uses 130,000 pagers, 10 per cent of the world’s total, and a fraction that slightly increased on 17 September when several thousand of...

20.09.2024 2

The Spectator

Druin Burch

There’s nothing wrong with being a ‘junior’ doctor

‘The wise bustle and laugh as they walk, but fools bustle and are important,’ wrote F.L. Lucas a century ago. ‘And this, probably is all the...

19.09.2024 3

The Spectator

Druin Burch