Identify problem and send help over to disheartened Geordie employing contrary lad (8)
I believe the answer is:
diagnose
'identify problem' is the definition.
(as in diagnosing a medical problem)
'send help over to disheartened geordie employing contrary lad' is the wordplay.
'send help over' becomes 'dia' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (the middle or heart is removed).
'employing' indicates putting letters inside.
'contrary' says the letters should be written backwards.
'lad' becomes 'son' (lad can informally mean a young boy).
'geordie' with its middle removed is 'ge'.
'son' back-to-front is 'nos'.
'ge' placed around 'nos' is 'gnose'.
'dia'+'gnose'='DIAGNOSE'
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for diagnose that I've seen before include "Identify (an illness)" , "Agonised (anag.)" , "Establish nature of illness after study of symptoms" , "San Diego (anag)" , "Analyse a problem" .)