This week I have decided to write about warts.

I suspect that the main motivation for this is so that the editor can use the headline, ‘warts and all’ about GPs!

I also think that it may give me an opportunity to find a few puns. Even if they are a bit ‘corny’.

There is obviously a serious side to warts, and a bit of advice to be had. One reason I think that it is considered to be a by-word for boring work, is that there aren’t any really bad things that can happen to people who have warts. They are just bloomin’ annoying.

I think sometimes people think that we sit in clinics, seeing warts and coughs and colds all day. In fact, we rarely see these sort of problems – mainly our days are about dealing with older people with pretty serious and complicated long term medical problems.

However, we do need to be ready for anything – including warts.

These sort of problems aren’t taught at medical school so we have to pick it all up from advice from peers and experience.

Therefore for problems such as warts, with no agreed cure, there are multiple different bits of advice patients get. In addition to this, there are a lot of old wives tales around. Some are fairly mundane, such as rub lemon juice on to the warts.

Some are a bit more interesting. One of my favourites is the ‘time tested’ method of rubbing a piece of steak on to the wart, then burying it under a rose bush.

By the time the steak has rotted (or the dog has dug it up presumably), the wart was supposed to have gone. Other methods include rubbing it with a dandelion, rubbing it with a blackberry – again by the time the blackberry has rotted the wart goes.

You’ll have spotted a theme, the two basic methods are either to strip the warty skin off, or to do something that causes a delay until the wart goes away naturally (which they do), or perhaps until the person giving the advice was long gone, taking their hard earned shilling with them!

Modern versions of these methods include, advice to use of topical acids from the chemist, which again need to be used for such a long time the wart will probably go on its own.

Another one is the use of ‘duct tape’ on the wart that takes part of it away when ripped off.

Actually trials of this have found that it works reasonably well.

For me the lesson is that when there are a lot of treatments, it is usually because there is nothing that works really well. If there was then there isn’t usually much doubt about it.

Combined with the fact that warts usually go away on their own, it explains a lot.

Anyway, I seem to have managed to get through the whole piece without making any bad joke, which shows great restraint. I also think that making puns about warts is probably a little bit too ‘callus’.