TY - JOUR T1 - Stalin lives, and is running the NHS JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 466 LP - 466 DO - 10.3399/bjgp14X681421 VL - 64 IS - 626 AU - Stuart Handysides Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/64/626/466.abstract N2 - A doctor friend who came from Poland in the mid-1980s, before the fall of communism, decries me for ‘champagne socialism’. Last summer she gave me a book to prove her point: Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe by Anne Applebaum.1 I approached its 500 pages warily.I was surprised, by page 16, on the day before my annual appraisal, to find my own feelings reflected: ‘... many have tried to describe what it feels like to endure the disintegration of one’s entire civilization, to watch the buildings and landscapes of one’s childhood collapse, to understand that the moral world of one’s parents and teachers no longer exists and that one’s respected national leaders have failed.’Appraisal began with an educational and supportive focus, but is now linked to revalidation. Its tone has changed from, ‘Perhaps you might consider ...’ to ‘You’re not doing well enough’. However friendly my appraisers have seemed, and despite their insistence … ER -