When Your Neurons Dance: A Story of a Doctor with Parkinson’s Disease

by Jonny Acheson As an Emergency Medicine consultant in one of the busiest departments in the UK, Dr Jonny Acheson loved his job. Fuelled by adrenaline, he treated and cared for some of the sickest patients who came through the doors. In 2016, when he was 41, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition for which there is no cure. He found it increasingly difficult to multitask in his fast-paced world. The environment that he thrived in made his symptoms worse. Parkinson’s challenged his professional identity as an emergency doctor, and he didn’t know what to do. When Your Neurons Dance is about how he is adapting over time with support around him - how he looked to the past to help him in the present, embracing change as new doors opened both inside and outside medicine. Ultimately as a doctor practising with Parkinson’s, he found a way to give back, despite a condition that always takes away.