User:Preacherdoc

I'm a practising anaesthetist/ anesthesiologist and a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. I also have an Honours degree in Anatomical Science.

My professional interests are obstetric anaesthesia, comparative vertebrate anatomy, the history of medicine and medical education. I am a part time medical writer. Sometimes people even read it. Teaching is a large part of my job and my life.

I live and work in New Zealand, and have worked in Scotland and France. I have two children, from whom I learn a lot.

I am very fond of the Islay malts, and play a bit of guitar. I read voraciously. I try to maintain interests outwith the field of medicine, and most of my friends are not doctors. I am a believer in the Gaia hypothesis, but increasingly sceptical about organised religion of all kinds. I adore chilli peppers and grow my own. I really want to grow a mandrake but worry that the kids might eat it. I am especially poor at chess.

I wrote my honours thesis about elephants, and they remain my second-favourite mammals. Tuataras are, without doubt, the most interesting reptiles in existence.

I adore classic computer games, and have great nostalgia for the BBC Micro and Amiga.

On Wikipedia, I try to confine my major contributions to my area of professional expertise, but I will occasionally tidy up other entries, or add bits and pieces to just about anything.

I am the founder of the ineffectual Society for the Simplification of Ludicrous Drug Names (see below), as well as an enthusiastic subscriber to the Royal College of Pedants, where the sign on the booth reads "I am he through whom enquiry may be made".

My username comes from the character Preacher in the excellent game The Chaos Engine. I don't look like him (although I occasionally dress like him), and I am only a little bit perverse. God is, however, unequivocally on my side. Really.

Let's hear it for Trivia!
Current Wikipedia policy opposes the use of trivia in articles. I support the inclusion of such information in the body of the text of an article, but I think that Wikipedia is a treasure trove of nuggets of unusual information and elusive cross references, and I think much of this information may be found nowhere else. Some of this material may be valuable in a scholastic sense; other material may simply be interesting or stimulating. Let's not discard this content just because it looks untidy.

British English!
I make no apology for using British spellings (anaesthesia, dentine, haemoglobin, oesophagus, sulphur, sceptic) and form of language. I don't change the spellings of those who use American spellings (anesthesia, dentin, hemoglobin, esophagus, sulfur, skeptic) because I respect the use of those spellings. However, when people "correct" my spellings to the American ones it is infuriating. Brits can spell too! See American and British English spelling differences.

Articles I have started from scratch

 * Aiden (given name)
 * Dominique Peyramale
 * Etomidate
 * Final FRCA
 * Frankfurt plane
 * Fresh gas flow
 * Firetrack
 * Hangman's fracture
 * Joseph Thomas Clover
 * Lourdes (disambiguation)
 * Lourdes Medical Bureau
 * Lourdes Water
 * Rosary Basilica
 * Ruby Blue (jazz)
 * Sacrococcygeal membrane
 * Snapper
 * Sugammadex

Articles I have made significant contributions to

 * Anesthesia (although I prefer to spell it anaesthesia)
 * Anesthesia awareness
 * Anaesthetic machine
 * Anaesthetic vaporiser
 * Bispectral index and associated articles
 * Elbow-joint
 * Epidural
 * Epidural space
 * Middle meningeal artery
 * Skull and associated individual bones and other structures
 * The cluster of articles related to medical careers in the UK, including Medical education in the United Kingdom, Certificate of Completion of Training, Consultant (medicine), and so on.
 * Several articles relating to specific Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs


 * Lourdes
 * Saint Bernadette
 * Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes
 * Carfin Grotto


 * Battle Chess
 * Carrier Command
 * Chaos Engine
 * The Sentinel
 * The Settlers
 * Zarch


 * Aidan
 * Ruby Blue

Ludicrous Drug Names
Drug names! Is it too much to ask that a drug name be chosen such that it is possible to pronounce it with the human larynx?? Check out these dreadful clunkers:
 * abciximab
 * drotrecogin
 * ximelagatran
 * zafirlukast

It is possible to choose names for new drugs which are pronouncable, even verging on the mellifluous, such as:
 * melphalan
 * sildenafil
 * sugammadex
 * err...