Who This Is Inspired By
Notes from the Corridor Consultant is inspired by the long, unflinching service of Dr Ray McGlone – an Emergency Medicine consultant who spent decades in the trenches of A&E, quietly witnessing the human stories, near-misses, system cracks – and moments when medicine matters most.
As the first A&E consultant at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, he arrived in 1990 as one of the youngest A&E consultants in the country. Over almost four decades he helped shape the department, cared for thousands of patients, mentored generations of clinicians and became a constant presence in a rapidly changing NHS.
His legacy isn’t just in service length or job titles; it lives in the small acts of compassion: the nights he supported colleagues during crises, the time given to patients and their families, and the consistent focus on doing what was safest and most humane – even when the corridor was full and the clock was unkind.
This blog is a small attempt to honor that legacy – and to pick up where the shift note ends.
What This Blog Is For
Emergency Departments are full of patterns. Some are clinical, some are human, some are systemic. Many of them repeat. The aim of this blog is to notice those patterns – especially the ones that lead to error – and write them down before they blur into memory.
- To serve as a reflective ledger of real problems, near-misses and lessons learned from the ED corridor.
- To highlight frequent pitfalls in patient management: the things that are easy to miss when time and pressure are high.
- To give juniors and seniors alike a place to read, recognize and (hopefully) avoid repeating the same mistakes.
- To build a quiet archive of emergency medicine experience – beyond guidelines and beyond the formal debrief.
Tone & Ethos
The aim here is candid reflection, not performance. Posts are written with clinical seriousness but human humility – more like a 3 a.m. corridor debrief than a lecture theater.
There is no interest in blame or heroics. Instead, the focus is on:
- Clear-eyed accounts of what actually happens in busy departments.
- Admitting uncertainty, mistakes and near-mistakes without shame.
- Translating experience into practical learning points that can change practice tomorrow.
Owning our errors and sharing them is not weakness; it is part of professional integrity and patient safety.
Why the “Corridor Consultant”?
The corridor in an ED is more than a walkway. It is a holding space, a pressure valve, a limbo. It is where patients wait on trolleys, relatives pace, and staff make decisions in less-than-ideal conditions. It is often where risk first appears – and where it can either be recognized early or quietly grow.
By naming the blog after the corridor, we acknowledge that emergency medicine does not only happen in polished resus bays or private rooms, but in crowded, noisy, imperfect spaces where judgement is constantly tested.
What You Can Expect
- Common pitfalls & recurring errors
Short, focused pieces on diagnostic traps, communication failures, and system issues that keep showing up on shift. - Case reflections
Anonymized scenarios that illustrate how good intentions can still drift towards harm – and how to course-correct. - Personal reflections
Thoughts on corridor care, burnout, moral injury, teamwork, and the emotional reality of working in Emergency Medicine. - Practical suggestions
Small, realistic changes – in practice, communication or systems – that could make care a little safer for the next patient on the trolley.
A Quiet Invitation
If something here resonates with you – a case, a pattern, a mistake you recognize – you are invited to reflect, discuss and share. The aim is not to compile a list of sins, but to build a culture where we talk honestly about what goes wrong, so it goes wrong less often.
The corridor is crowded. The work is hard. The lessons are expensive. Let’s not lose them.