The Aural Apothecary

In this final episode of Series 8, we are joined by Dr Ellie Cannon — NHS and private GP, women’s health specialist, Mail on Sunday health columnist, and author of The Little Book of HRT. The conversation ranges from the evolving landscape of menopause treatment and the dangers of health misinformation online to the role of the media in shaping public health behaviour.

Ellie reflects on her 18-year career as a GP on Abbey Road in North London and her work bringing calm, evidence-based medicine to an increasingly crowded and often sensationalist health media landscape. We explore the nuances of HRT prescribing, including the thorny topic of duration of use, while also discussing her earlier book Is Your Job Making You Ill? and the profound impact that work and workplace relationships can have on health and wellbeing.

The episode’s micro discussion examines a systematic review of patient access to clinical notes, weighing the benefits for patient empowerment and safety against concerns about data quality, clinician intentions and unintended consequences.
Impact of online patient access to clinical notes on quality of care: a systematic review https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/35/4/266

As with all of our guests, Ellie shares with us her Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book. Her book choice is particularly poignant.The Little Book of HRT: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/little-book-of-hrt-9781399423694/

Is Your Job Making You Ill? https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/dr-ellie-cannon/is-your-job-making-you-ill/9780349416755/

From Prescription to Ocean — A TEDx Talk by Jamie HayesWe’re incredibly proud to share that Aural Apothecary co-host Jamie Hayes has taken to the TEDx stage with a thought-provoking talk:  Prescription to Ocean: The Hidden Impact of Medicines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCLNaAG5qYJamie explores a fascinating and urgent question: What happens to our medicines once they leave the prescription pad — and how do they impact the world beyond the patient? It’s a journey that connects healthcare, the environment, and our shared responsibility for the future. You’ll never think about prescribing (or taking) medicines in quite the same way again.Please take a few minutes to watch, reflect, and share — this is a conversation worth having.Please follow us on

LinkedIn! Let us know what you think of the show. 
https://www.linkedin.com/company/auralapothecary/

You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg 

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;  https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3O

Our website is https://www.theauralapothecary.com/

To get in touch follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com. Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from.

Are your medicines actually working for you?

According to Professor Nick Barber, probably not as well as you think. In this episode of The Aural Apothecary, Jamie, Gimmo and STC are joined by Professor Nick Barber — pharmacist, academic and author of the new book How to take Drugs  — for a sharp, eye-opening conversation about why medicines so often fail in the real world. Not because the drugs are useless, but because taking medicines is far more complicated than we pretend.

They explore the messy reality behind adherence, side effects, polypharmacy and patient behaviour — and why healthcare systems routinely overestimate what medicines can achieve while underestimating how hard they are to use properly.

Along the way, Nick reflects on decades spent researching medicines optimisation and patient safety, arguing that the future of healthcare may depend less on discovering new treatments and more on helping people use existing ones better.

A thoughtful, provocative conversation about one of modern medicine’s biggest blind spots.

Buy the book here  https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/nick-barber/how-to-take-drugs/9781035072132

Two seminal papers by Nick , discussed on the podcast:

What constitutes good prescribing? https://www.bmj.com/content/310/6984/923 

Quality of medication use in primary care--mapping the problem, working to a solution: a systematic review of the literature https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19772551/

Website discussed on the podcast re ASSESSING MEDICATION FOR ANTICHOLINERGIC BURDEN (USING THE ANTICHOLINERGIC EFFECT ON COGNITION TOOL) AND FOR QTc PROLONGATION, HYPONATRAEMIA, BLEEDING, DIZZINESS, DROWSINESS and CONSTIPATION Medichec

About Professor Nick Barber Professor

Nick Barber is one of the UK’s leading experts in pharmacy practice, medicines optimisation and patient safety. He has held senior academic and leadership roles across healthcare and higher education and has spent decades researching how medicines are used in the real world.

As with all of our guests, Nick shares with us his Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book. The drug choice with a deeply personal story that underpins the whole ethos of the book.

Gimmo commits podultary! Listen to his appearance on the excellent ‘Knowing You’ podcast with friend of the show Sarah Cripps on all major podcast platforms: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarahcripps_leadership-qualityimprovement-mentalhealth-share-7442815050563809280-nDgR 

From Prescription to Ocean — A TEDx Talk by Jamie Hayes We’re incredibly proud to share that Aural Apothecary co-host Jamie Hayes has taken to the TEDx stage with a thought-provoking talk:  Prescription to Ocean: The Hidden Impact of Medicines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCLNaAG5qY Jamie explores a fascinating and urgent question: What happens to our medicines once they leave the prescription pad — and how do they impact the world beyond the patient? It’s a journey that connects healthcare, the environment, and our shared responsibility for the future. You’ll never think about prescribing (or taking) medicines in quite the same way again. Please take a few minutes to watch, reflect, and share — this is a conversation worth having.

Please follow us on LinkedIn! Let us know what you think of the show. https://www.linkedin.com/company/auralapothecary/ You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg 

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;   https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3O

Our website is https://www.theauralapothecary.com/

To get in touch follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com.

Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from.

Is healthcare becoming too much like a repair shop?

In this episode, we are joined by Professor Sir Gregor Smith, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, for a wide-ranging conversation on 10 years of Realistic Medicine and the themes explored in his latest report, Critical Connections.

Together we explore the need to create a better balance between biography and biology when practicing evidence based medicine. We discuss why meaningful human connection matters so profoundly to health, and how modern healthcare risks drifting into “transactional industrial care.”

The discussion ranges from prevention and sustainability to polypharmacy, de-prescribing and the challenge of measuring what truly matters through PROMs (Patient-Reported Outcome Measures) and PREMs (Patient-Reported Experience Measures).

Gregor reflects on the formative experiences that shaped his thinking as a GP, the development of Scotland’s polypharmacy guidance, and why Realistic Medicine was always intended as a grassroots movement rather than a top-down programme.This is a conversation about careful and kind care — and what it would take to build health systems that genuinely help people live well.

We discuss in detail Gregor's own report ‘Realistic Medicine - Critical Connections’. It is one of the most insightful and important papers we have ever read and is a must-read for our listeners!https://www.gov.scot/publications/chief-medical-officers-annual-report-2024-2025-realistic-medicine-critical-connections/

As with all of our guests, Gregor shares with us his Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book. Another appearance by a popular author, a song choice with a story and a drug that takes us right back to the very formation of the podcast!

Gimmo commits podultary! Listen to his appearance on the excellent ‘Knowing You’ podcast with friend of the show Sarah Cripps on all major podcast platforms: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarahcripps_leadership-qualityimprovement-mentalhealth-share-7442815050563809280-nDgR 

Link to “ Thinking Critically About AI Lectures”  by Jessica Morley https://youtu.be/03bJ8BcYs1c?si=j9eHuCWVJEng7cO1

From Prescription to Ocean — A TEDx Talk by Jamie HayesWe’re incredibly proud to share that Aural Apothecary co-host Jamie Hayes has taken to the TEDx stage with a thought-provoking talk:  Prescription to Ocean: The Hidden Impact of Medicineshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCLNaAG5qYJamie explores a fascinating and urgent question: What happens to our medicines once they leave the prescription pad — and how do they impact the world beyond the patient? It’s a journey that connects healthcare, the environment, and our shared responsibility for the future. You’ll never think about prescribing (or taking) medicines in quite the same way again.Please take a few minutes to watch, reflect, and share — this is a conversation worth having.

Please follow us on LinkedIn! Let us know what you think of the show. https://www.linkedin.com/company/auralapothecary/

You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg 

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;  https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3OOur website is https://www.theauralapothecary.com/To get in touch follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com.

Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from.

In this episode, we explore the challenging landscape of disinformation in healthcare with Associate Professor Dr. Lena Frischlich from the University of Southern Denmark.

Lena is co-director of the Center for Digital Democracy and an expert in media psychology and communication science. Her research focuses on the interplay between the digital realm, human cognition, and behavior—particularly how manipulative online communication like propaganda and disinformation impacts on what we believe about medicines and health.

Lena shares insights from her keynote at the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists Conference in Copenhagen in 2025, where she explained what makes people susceptible to misinformation and how healthcare providers can defend against it. With a background in clinical psychology and extensive research on online manipulation, she brings a unique perspective on why even intelligent, educated people fall for false information—and what we can do about it.

From understanding the psychology behind misinformation to practical strategies for combating it, this episode is essential listening for anyone working in healthcare or concerned about the spread of false medical information online.

For our micro-discussion we discuss the paper “Misrepresentation of semaglutide in social media” - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40682686/ - does it do a responsible job of presenting the risks versus the benefits…? 

We also discuss Bullshit. Or more specifically the paper “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit” - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/on-the-reception-and-detection-of-pseudoprofound-bullshit/0D3C87BCC238BCA38BC55E395BDC9999.  What is “Brandolini’s Law…?”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law As with all of our guests, Lena shares with us her Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book. Rather uniquely, Lena hasn’t actually read the book she chooses but it makes Gimmo very happy nonetheless.

Prof Lena Frischlich Bio: Lena Frischlich (PhD in Psychology, University of Cologne) is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Democracy at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Since 2026, she is also an external faculty member at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna. Before coming to Denmark, she served as an interim Professor for Communication at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (2020-21 and 2023). Between 2018 and 2023, she led the junior research group “DemoRESILdigital: Democratic resilience in times of online-propaganda, fake news, fear and hate speech” at the University of Muenster, Germany. Frischlich researches the staging and effects of manipulation-oriented political online communication, including disinformation, conspiracy myths, and extremist propaganda and aims to understand how resilience against such manipulation attempts can be fostered. In her research, she combines quantitative and qualitative methods from empirical social sciences with computational measures (such as natural language processing and machine learning). Frischlich has published over 80 academic contributions, of which over 40 have appeared in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including leading publications such as Digital Journalism, Social Media + Society, New Media & Society, and Current Opinions in Psychology. Since 2013, Frischlich has been (co-)PI on multiple third party-funded projects addressing manipulative online content and countermeasures. In the last five years alone, she has been a co-author on more than 50 academic papers and has been invited to give more than 30 talks and keynotes to different audiences. In 2023, her research was rewarded with the Sponsorship Award of the University of Münster Society for Early Career Scholars. In 2020, she was elected to the prestigious Young Colleagues of the North-Rhine Westphalian Academy of Sciences and the Arts. Frischlich is also part of the Santa Fe Institute's global counter-balance speaker series, an applied seminar series that brings together international experts studying cyberhate, misinformation, social polarization, and counter-speech. Since 2021, Frischlich has served as spokesperson of the Media Psychological Division of the German Psychological Association. She is an associate editor at Media and Communication and Digital Journalism and has been a guest editor at Digital Journalism, Media and Communication, and Studies in Media and Communication. Currently, she co-edits a special issue on the politics of misinformation at the Journal of Elections, Public Opinions, and Parties. She is an ad-hoc reviewer for over 30 academic journals and several national and international funding organisations. In 2024, she was elected to the commission of the Centre for Advanced Internet Studies. Frischlich is a popular speaker who has provided talks to various audiences, including the Federal Bank of Germany, the European Congress of Hospital Pharmacists, and the MediaTech Festival organised by the journalistic Media City Odense. She was also an invited expert for a session on disinformation as part of the North Rhine-Westphalian Parliament's inquiry commission on the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Frischlich is a member of the International Panel on the information environment and the European Knowledge Hub on Radicalisation. 

From Prescription to Ocean — A TEDx Talk by Jamie Hayes We’re incredibly proud to share that Aural Apothecary co-host Jamie Hayes has taken to the TEDx stage with a thought-provoking talk:  Prescription to Ocean: The Hidden Impact of Medicines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCLNaAG5qY Jamie explores a fascinating and urgent question: What happens to our medicines once they leave the prescription pad — and how do they impact the world beyond the patient? It’s a journey that connects healthcare, the environment, and our shared responsibility for the future. You’ll never think about prescribing (or taking) medicines in quite the same way again. Please take a few minutes to watch, reflect, and share — this is a conversation worth having.

Please follow us on LinkedIn! Let us know what you think of the show. https://www.linkedin.com/company/auralapothecary/

You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg 

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;   https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3O

Our website is https://www.the auralapothecary.com/

 To get in touch follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com. Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from.

How did three pharmacists , two of whom had never met, come together to create one of the most distinctive medicines-focused podcasts around?

In this fifth anniversary special, hosted by Sarah Cripps , we reflect on five years of remarkable guests, powerful stories, and conversations that have reshaped how we think about medicines. 

We look back at what has made us laugh, what has stayed with us, and the moments that felt genuinely impactful — for us and, we hope, for our listeners. Along the way, we trace an unexpected evolution: from a focus on medicines themselves to a deeper exploration of systems and failure demand — and what happens when we start asking: not just what the drugs do, but what is it that our systems produce for patients? 

We close by reflecting on what we’ve learned, what we’re still unsure about, and what we hope the next five years might hold. 

Friend of the show Sarah Cripps, who hosts her own podcast “Knowing You With Sarah” https://open.spotify.com/show/64JJXzmrVi6ZAMyB72Qy48 , expertly interrogates our evolution from enthusiastic amateurs to what we now prefer to call seasoned amateurs.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcripps 

Despite being our host, Steve still quizzes Sarah on her choice of Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book that has influenced her life. She has had five years and one hour to think about it…

From Prescription to Ocean — A TEDx Talk by Jamie Hayes We’re incredibly proud to share that Aural Apothecary co-host Jamie Hayes has taken to the TEDx stage with a thought-provoking talk:  Prescription to Ocean: The Hidden Impact of Medicines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCLNaAG5qY Jamie explores a fascinating and urgent question: What happens to our medicines once they leave the prescription pad — and how do they impact the world beyond the patient? It’s a journey that connects healthcare, the environment, and our shared responsibility for the future. You’ll never think about prescribing (or taking) medicines in quite the same way again. Please take a few minutes to watch, reflect, and share — this is a conversation worth having.

Please follow us on LinkedIn! Let us know what you think of the show. https://www.linkedin.com/company/auralapothecary/

You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg 

You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;   https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3O

Our website is https://www.theauralapothecary.com/

To get in touch follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X @auralapothecary or email us at auralapothecarypod@gmail.com.

Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from.