Margaret McCartney
General practitioner and freelance writer
3
APPEARANCES
3
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Oct 22, 2026
To screen or not to screen?
9:24
9:40
9:51
10:00
17:15

Miriam SabinHOST
And I'm wondering, is there a conversation now, is that happening at all now, to think about how to distinguish different types of screening, when they're useful, when they're not, and what evidence is needed for each?
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
So just let's clarify, first of all, screening is only for people without symptoms.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
So it's a completely separate thing when you're talking about symptomatic testing for people who have presented themselves to a doctor or who have got symptoms of disease.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
So screening is the act of going to find people without symptoms who believe themselves to be well and healthy and and offering them a test.
7 MINS LATER

Niall BoyceHOST
What other harms might people experience because they've had health screening, which wasn't merited and which have picked up, as we'd say, incidental omas?
Director Sofia Coppola on Making Marie Antoinette
17:27
17:35
17:40
17:51
17:55
18:01
18:17
20:33

Kirsty WarkHOST
Margaret, what do you make of this? Do you think that prescribing art and culture can work? It's such an interesting question.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
And I think we have to think about this in the background of what's been happening in the UK over the last couple of decades.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
We've had a massive cull of youth centres and clubs, libraries, public spaces where people could go in, be warm, all those reading groups, nursery round groups you used to have when your children were small.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
The BBC reported last year that libraries are being lost at 40 per year.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
So we've lost these kind of social public spaces that people can go into, feel welcomed in, somewhere where young people can go.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
And at the same time, we've had this trend whereby the normal things that would have been available to members of the community to go in and enjoy and take part in have kind of been medicalised and put into this umbrella of what's now been called social prescribing.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
With this idea that GPs or other clinicians can refer someone in for this intervention.

Kirsty WarkHOST
Is targeting groups the key to this? And then how do you measure the impact of that?
Tuscadero - "The Pink Album" with Tuscadero
5:40
5:45
33:02
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
Um, so I grew up in DC, and I'm trying to think, like, what's, what was my early experience.
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
This doesn't really have anything to do with DC music, but when I was, like, 15, I went to Merriweather Post to see, uh, UB40.
27 MINS LATER
P
32:36Philip BasnightHOST
Did you feel, um, any of the, you know, things that people, any of the horror stories that people have about major labels or anything like that? Or was it a pretty good experience? Did it kinda move the ball along, or did it turn out that you, you end up doing everything yourself anyways, and, you know, it's kinda-
Margaret McCartneyGUEST
I wouldn't say they did a ton of stuff for us, but, you know, [laughs] I think we never expected to be in that position of, like, doing that for a living anyway.